DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cp8bh43
title: Data from: Disturbance intensity is a stronger driver of biomass recovery than remaining tree-community attributes in a managed Amazonian forest

description: 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. Disturbance intensity was quantified as basal area reduction
 and basal area remaining. Remaining diversity (taxonomic, functional and
 structural) and CWM of five functional traits linked to biomass
 productivity (specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen and phosphorous
 concentration, leaf toughness and wood density) were calculated for the
 post-intervention inventories. Predictors were related to response
 variables using multiple linear regressions and structural equation
 modelling. 4.We found support for the disturbance hypothesis in both
 recovery periods. AGB increment of survivors and of the total tree
 community increased with basal area remaining, indicating the importance
 of remaining growing stock for biomass recovery. Conversely, AGB increment
 of recruit trees increased with basal area reduction because changes in
 forest structure increased resource availability for young trees. We did
 not find consistent support for the niche-complementarity and
 biomass-ratio hypotheses, possibly because of a high redundancy in these
 extremely species-rich forests. 5.Synthesis and applications. The
 intensity of disturbance through management, expressed as basal area
 reduction and basal area remaining, was consistently more important for
 explaining forest biomass recovery following harvesting and thinning than
 remaining diversity or trait composition. This points to the importance of
 controlling logging and thinning intensity in forests of the eastern
 Amazon. Low to moderate harvesting intensities permitted by the current
 legislation for the Brazilian Amazon (30 m³ ha−1) will likely not impair
 biomass recovery in these forests.
description: Data from de Avila et
 al. (2018) - Journal of Applied EcologyData of aboveground
 biomass increment from a long-term experiment in the Brazilian Amazon over
 two recovery periods: post-logging (1983-1989) and post-thinning
 (1995-2012). In total, 41 permanent sample plots were monitored. The
 following variables are given: aboveground biomass increment of surviving
 trees (dAGBsurvivors), aboveground biomass increment of recruit trees
 (dAGBrecruits), aboveground biomass increment of total community
 (dAGBgross), disturbance intensity quantified as basal area reduction
 (BAreduction) and basal area remaining (BAremaining), taxonomic diversity
 calculated as the rarefied number of species (Srar), functional diversity
 defined as the multivariate functional trait dispersion (FDis), structural
 diversity quantified using the Gini coefficient (Gini), and the
 community-weighted mean (CWM) trait values of five functional traits
 linked to biomass productivity (specific leaf area - CWM.SLA, leaf
 nitrogen and phosphorous concentration - CWM.Nleaf and CWM.Pleaf, leaf
 toughness - CWM.FPs and wood density - CWM.WD).Aboveground biomass
 recovery.xlsx