Disturbance intensity is a stronger driver of biomass recovery than remaining tree-community attributes in a managed Amazonian forest

1.Forest recovery following management interventions is important to maintain ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. It remains, however, largely unclear how aboveground biomass (AGB) recovery of species-rich tropical forests is affected by disturbance intensity and post-disturbance (remaining) tree-community attributes, following logging and thinning interventions.

2.We investigated whether annual AGB increment (∆AGB) decreases with management-related disturbance intensity (disturbance hypothesis), and increases with the diversity (niche-complementarity hypothesis) and the community-weighted mean (CWM) of acquisitive traits of dominant species (biomass-ratio hypothesis) in the remaining tree community.

3.We analysed data from a long-term forest-management experiment in the Brazilian Amazon over two recovery periods: post-logging (1983-1989) and post-thinning (1995-2012). We computed the ∆AGB of surviving trees, recruit trees and of the total tree community...

1. 森林经经营干预后的恢复，对维持生态系统功能与生态系统服务供给至关重要。然而，在伐木与间伐干预后，物种丰富的热带森林的地上生物量（aboveground biomass, AGB）恢复如何受到干扰强度以及干扰后剩余树木群落属性的影响，目前仍在很大程度上尚未明确。
2. 本研究旨在验证三项假说：其一为干扰假说（disturbance hypothesis），即年度地上生物量增量（ΔAGB）会随经营相关干扰强度的升高而降低；其二为生态位互补假说（niche-complementarity hypothesis），即年度ΔAGB会随剩余树木群落的多样性提升而增加；其三为生物量比假说（biomass-ratio hypothesis），即年度ΔAGB会随优势种获取型性状的群落加权均值（community-weighted mean, CWM）的升高而增加。
3. 我们分析了巴西亚马逊地区一项长期森林经营实验在两个恢复周期内的数据：伐木后恢复阶段（1983年—1989年）与间伐后恢复阶段（1995年—2012年）。我们分别计算了存活树木、新生树木以及整体树木群落的ΔAGB……