Landscape structure, predictability of forest regeneration trajectories, and recovery rate on secondary forests

Abandonment of agricultural lands promotes the global expansion of secondary forests, which are critical for preserving biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services. Such roles largely depend, however, on two essential successional attributes, trajectory and recovery rate, which are expected to depend on landscape-scale forest cover in non- linear ways. This dataset is the synthesis outcome of 22 independent databases from studies of woody plant species recovery as part of the research project entitled \"Impacts of landscape structure on secondary tropical forest regeneration\". This work aimed to understand the effect of landscape-level disturbance on forest regeneration, specifically through the predictability of trajectories and the recovery rate of these forests.
Using a multiscale approach and a large vegetation dataset (843 plots, 3511 tree species) from 22 secondary forest chronosequences distributed across the Neotropics, we show that successional trajectories of woody plant ..., We compiled 22 independent databases from studies of woody plant species recovery across five Neotropical countries. Each study included plots established in secondary forest stands of different ages forming a chronosequence. We used taxonomic species richness, density of individuals, and total basal area per plot to evaluate the successional trajectories and recovery rate of vegetation structure. We calculated the extrapolated values of species richness considering the maximum sample coverage (𝐶n = 1.0), following the protocols proposed by Chao & Jost (2012). To assess the predictability of successional trajectories, we related each community attribute (species richness, density of individuals, and basal area) to stand age for each chronosequence (n = 22). We derived the adjusted R²adj  values from generalized additive models (GAMs) to use as a proxy for predictability of the successional trajectories. Because R²adj represents the fraction of the variance in the dependent variable ...,

农田撂荒推动了全球次生林的扩张，而次生林对于生物多样性保护、生态系统功能与服务维系至关重要。然而，这类生态服务功能在很大程度上取决于两个核心的演替属性：演替轨迹与恢复速率，且二者预计会以非线性方式依赖于景观尺度的森林覆盖度。
本数据集是题为"景观结构对热带次生林更新的影响"的研究项目中，针对木本植物恢复开展的22项独立研究数据库的整合成果。该研究旨在解析景观尺度干扰对森林更新的影响，尤其是通过探究这些森林的演替轨迹可预测性与恢复速率来实现研究目标。
本研究采用多尺度研究方法，整合了分布于新热带区的22条次生林演替序列的大型植被数据集（含843个样地、3511个树种），研究结果显示木本植物的演替轨迹……我们共整合了分布于5个新热带国家的木本植物恢复研究的22项独立数据库，每项研究均设置了不同林龄次生林林分的样地，以构建演替序列。
我们以样地内的分类学物种丰富度、个体密度及总基面积作为评估指标，来解析植被结构的演替轨迹与恢复速率。参考Chao与Jost（2012）提出的研究方法，我们以最大样本覆盖度（𝐶ₙ = 1.0）为基准计算了物种丰富度的外推值。为评估演替轨迹的可预测性，我们针对每条演替序列（共22条），将各群落属性（物种丰富度、个体密度与基面积）与林分年龄进行关联分析，并通过广义可加模型（Generalized Additive Models, GAMs）得到调整后决定系数（R²adj），以此作为演替轨迹可预测性的替代指标。由于调整后决定系数代表因变量方差的解释比例……