DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1kd43s5
title: Data from: Land use legacy effects on woody vegetation in agricultural landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia

description: Aim: Past land use legacy effects – extinction debts and immigration
 credits – might be particularly pronounced in regions characterized by
 complex and dynamic landscape change. The aim of this study was to
 evaluate how current woody plant species distribution, composition and
 richness related to historical and present land uses. Location: A
 smallholder farming landscape in southwestern Ethiopia. Methods: We
 surveyed woody plants in 72 randomly selected 1 ha sites in farmland, and
 grouped them into forest specialist, generalist and pioneer species.
 First, we investigated woody plant composition and distribution using
 non-metric multidimensional scaling. Second, we modelled species richness
 in response to historical and current distance from the forest edge.
 Third, we examined diameter class distributions of trees in recently
 converted versus permanent farmland. Results: Historical distance was a
 primary driver of woody plant composition and distribution. Generalist and
 pioneer species richness increased with historical distance. Forest
 specialists, however, did not respond to historical distance. Only few old
 individuals of forest specialist species remained in both recently
 converted and permanent farmlands. Main conclusions: Our findings suggest
 that any possible extinction debt for forest specialist species in
 farmland at the landscape scale was rapidly paid off, possibly because
 farmers cleared large remnant trees. In contrast, we found substantial
 evidence of immigration credits in farmland for generalist and pioneer
 species. This suggests that long-established farmland may have
 unrecognised conservation values, though apparently not for forest
 specialist species. We suggest that conservation policies in southwestern
 Ethiopia should recognize not only forests, but also the complementary
 value of the agricultural mosaic – similarly to the case of European
 cultural landscapes. A possible future priority could be to better
 reintegrate forest species in the farmland mosaic.
description: Data for land use legacy
 effects on woody vegetationThree zip-archived,
 comma delimited csv files with (1) DBH data, (2) species richness data,
 and (3) species composition data. For (1), columns include site ID, short
 name of tree species (composed of first three letters of genus name and
 first three letters of tree species name), tree DBH (in cm), land use
 history (i.e. permanent or converted farmland), and tree species type
 (i.e. forest specialist, generalist, or pioneer species). For (2), columns
 include kebele ID (GBD = Borcho Deka, GKH = Kela Harari, SDM = Difo Mani,
 SGB = Gido Bere, TBW = Bere Weranigo, and TKF = Kuda Kofi), site ID, land
 use type, total species richness, total species abundance, forest
 specialist species richness, forest specialist species abundance, pioneer
 species richness, pioneer species abundance, generalist species richness,
 generalist species abundance, proportion of vegetation cover within the
 site (in %), wetness index, historical (1973) distance (in m), current
 (2015) distance (in m), land use history (permanent or converted
 farmland), and altitude (in m above sea level). (3) is a site-by-species
 abundance matrix with site IDs and species represented by their short name
 (composed of first three letters of genus name and first three letters of
 species name).