20 results on '"Di Paola, Arianna"'
Search Results
2. Exploring the relationship between canopy height and terrestrial plant diversity
- Author
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Gatti, Roberto Cazzolla, Di Paola, Arianna, Bombelli, Antonio, Noce, Sergio, and Valentini, Riccardo
- Published
- 2017
3. Human food vs. animal feed debate. A thorough analysis of environmental footprints
- Author
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Di Paola, Arianna, Rulli, Maria Cristina, and Santini, Monia
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Changes in the world rivers’ discharge projected from an updated high resolution dataset of current and future climate zones
- Author
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Santini, Monia and di Paola, Arianna
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Climate stressors modulate interannual olive yield at province level in Italy: A composite index approach to support crop management.
- Author
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Di Paola, Arianna, Di Giuseppe, Edmondo, Gutierrez, Andrew Paul, Ponti, Luigi, and Pasqui, Massimiliano
- Subjects
- *
CROP management , *OLIVE fly , *OLIVE , *MEDITERRANEAN climate , *AUTUMN - Abstract
Although a large part of Italy is characterized by a Mediterranean climate intrinsically highly suitable for olive cultivation, farmers may experience variable interannual yields with associated agronomic and management costs. A detailed overview of major climate stressors and their ongoing impacts on olive yield variability at a broad spatial–temporal scale across Italy could improve the understanding of how interannual olive yields are modulated by seasonal local climate and would enhance the development of actionable services to alert stakeholders of potential climate risks. We analysed aggregated olive yield data from the Italian National Statistics Institute (ISTAT) at the provincial level during 2006–2020, and several climatic variables from the Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) as a basis to (i) explore olive yield trends and inter‐annual variations over the whole country; (ii) identify major seasonal climate stressors likely responsible for the largest variations in yield and (iii) develop a composite index that summarizes the risk of having exceptionally low yields due to the co‐occurrence of multiple stressors. To this end, we defined two extreme classes of yield, namely, exceptionally low and high yields (LY and HY, respectively) and explored the climatic variables aggregated on a bimonthly time scale that influenced yield outcomes. Our analysis showed that exceptional low yields have been erratically increasing since 2014 with temperature‐related variables having the highest impact, especially a relatively warm winter and cool early autumn. These period‐specific variables were major components of the resulting composite index predicting the likelihood of LY ranging from 28% to 49% due to increasing stress effects. Possible explanations of our findings are discussed, including the proliferation of the olive fly. We suggest the composite risk approach could lay the groundwork for an integrated meteorological seasonal forecasting system that provides timely insights on factors affecting within‐season olive yield development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Exploring the relationship between canopy height and terrestrial plant diversity
- Author
-
Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto, Di Paola, Arianna, Bombelli, Antonio, Noce, Sergio, and Valentini, Riccardo
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. The impact of selective logging and clearcutting on forest structure, tree diversity and above-ground biomass of African tropical forests
- Author
-
Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto, Castaldi, Simona, Lindsell, Jeremy A., Coomes, David A., Marchetti, Marco, Maesano, Mauro, Di Paola, Arianna, Paparella, Francesco, and Valentini, Riccardo
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. Integrated IoT monitoring system and data science platform to monitor plant conditions under biotic and abiotic factors
- Author
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Monia, Santini, Paola, Nassisi, Valentina, Scardigno, Carlo, Trotta, Alessandro, D'Anca, Di Paola Arianna, Sandro, Fiore, Giovanni, Aloisio, and Riccardo, Valentini
- Subjects
xylella ,plant health - Abstract
In the context of XF-ACTORS project, a IoT based monitoring system has been established and tested in the field - for an olive grove in Puglia (Italy) affected by Xf - to measure in near real-time some parameters proxies of trees’ conditions and vulnerability under both abiotic (climate) and biotic factors. The system is based on the TreeTalker (TT) technology, comprising multiparametric sensors to monitor water transport in trees, trunk humidity and diametrical oscillations, spectral characteristics of the leaves and microclimatic parameters (temperature, relative humidity). In particular, the sap flow density can be retrieved according to the Heat Balance Method (Granier 1985) after measuring the temperature of two 20 mm long probes inserted into the stem wood at 10 cm distance along the trunk vertical axis; the probe in the higher position is heated while the lower one provides the reference temperature. The TT system collects and transmits data at hourly time frequency, thanks to a LoRa based wireless connection, to a node managed by another microcontroller (TT-Cloud) serving a few tens of devices in a cluster. The TT-Cloud is in turn connected to the internet via the GPRS network and sends data to a computer server. Here, raw data are subject to ETL procedure that allows data Extraction from the TT-Cloud source, data Transformation by cleaning and converting them into variables with eco-physiological meaning, and finally data Loading to insert them into the target spatio-temporal database, adopting proper storage format/structure for querying and analysis purpose. From here, data can be further elaborated and visualized, e.g. into useful statistics, through a tailored Data Science environment. The preliminary results on sap flow density are here presented as they can give important information about the impact of Xf that is known obstructing xylem vessels, reducing hydraulic conductivity and thus affecting evapotranspiration.
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. What are the factors driving the adoption of sustainable irrigation technologies in Italy?
- Author
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Pronti, Andrea, Auci, Sabrina, Di Paola, Arianna, and Mazzanti, Massimiliano
- Subjects
Environmental Economics and Policy - Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. A generalized phenological model for durum wheat: application to the Italian peninsula.
- Author
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Di Paola, Arianna, Ventura, Francesca, Vignudelli, Marco, Bombelli, Antonio, and Severini, Maurizio
- Subjects
- *
DURUM wheat , *WHEAT , *PENINSULAS , *CULTIVARS , *CROPPING systems , *ATMOSPHERIC temperature - Abstract
BACKGROUND: A likely increasing demand for varieties mixtures, landraces and genetic diversity in cropping systems will underpin calls for models able to generalize phenological development at the species level, at the same time as providing the expected range of phenological variability. In the present article, we aimed to obtain a generalized phenological model of durum wheat (Triticum durum, Desf.). RESULTS: Using a large phenological dataset embracing field data collected under different sowing dates, varieties and locations over the Italian peninsula, we searched for the phenophases enabling the best linear approximations between developmental rates and air temperature, aiming to minimize the residual variability from drivers other than temperature, as genetic and environmental diversity. The developmental rates of the resulting phases were then examined with respect to the mean daylength to determine possible additional relations with photoperiod. If a correlation with daylength was also present, the developmental rate is calibrated by multiple linear regression, or otherwise by simple linear regression of temperature. The resulting calibration, tested on an independent data subset, confirms that the model is able to generalize wheat development over the Italian peninsula with high accuracy (mean absolute error =3–8 days; r2 = 0.75–0.98), regardless of the wheat variety. CONCLUSION: The generalized phenological model is potentially suitable for many agro‐ecological and large‐scale applications. It is hoped that the model will aid in situations where phenological observations to parameterize a model are still lacking, as is probably the case for landraces and underutilized crop varieties. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. I cambiamenti climatici minacciano la coesistenza all'interno delle comunità forestali delle zone umide del Mediterraneo
- Author
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Di Paola, Arianna
- Subjects
Dynamic models ,Wet forest ,Regime shift ,AGR/05 ,Bifurcation analysis ,Foreste umide ,Modelli dinamici ,Climate change ,Analisi di biforcazione ,Cambiamenti climatici ,Transizioni di regime - Abstract
Mediterranean basin supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation, highly adapted to the mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers that characterize the Mediterranean climate. Never less the Mediterranean region has been identified as one of the hot spots of climate change. This study aims to understand what are the conditions of coexistence, thus biodiversity, of Mediterranean tree species in humid areas under future scenarios of altered hydrological regimes. The core of the work is a quantitative, dynamic model exploring the coexistence of different mediterranean tree species, typical of the arid or semi-arid wetland where ecological overlaps exist between mesic communities and those dominated by wetland specialists. The original idea of the paper is to address this topic from a deterministic approach using a dynamical model which is validated by existing data on species abundance. The dynamic of the population is broadly-defined according to the distinct adaptive strategies of trees for water stress of summer drought and winter flooding while climate change are explored as external forcing by means of a bifurcation analysis and compared with the major regional climate scenarios. I argue that at intermediate levels of water supply, which do not benefit either of the two species, the dual role of water (resource and stress) results in the coexistence of two kind of species, namely Hygrophilous and Non-hygrophilous. In order to support the validity of the ideas contained in the present study I applied the model to a Mediterranean coastal forested wetlands of Central Italy located into Castelporziano Estate and Circeo National Park. The results obtained show that there are distinct rainfall thresholds on the ability of Mediterranean wetlands to maintain species coexistence and hence to sustain biodiversity, calling for an urgent adaptation and mitigation response to prevent human pressure on water resources in proximity of wetland forested areas. Come è noto, il bacino del mediterraneo ospita una vegetazione fortemente adattata alle particolari condizioni climatiche che ne caratterizzano l’area. Inoltre la regione mediterranea è ricca di zone umide naturali ad elevata valenza ecologica. L’equilibrio di questi complessi sistemi naturali corre il rischio di essere alterato a causa dei cambiamenti climatici globali che, secondo i maggiori scenari climatici, mostrano un hot spot proprio nella regione mediterranea. Alla luce di questi fatti, la presente tesi mira ad individuare le condizioni climatiche per le quali la coesistenza, intesa quale sinonimo di biodiversità, di diverse specie arboree delle zone umide del mediterraneo è preservata. A tal fine è stato sviluppato un modello dinamico di competizione idrica per descrivere la coesistenza di due distinti gruppi di specie arboree (i.e. specie denominate igrofile e non-igrofile) che mostrano diverse strategie adattative allo stress idrico che caratterizza le zone umide del mediterraneo: drought estivo e flooding invernale. Al fine di verificarne la validità, il modello è stato validato sulle foreste umide planinziali della costa tirrenica integrando le informazioni rinvenute per i siti del Parco Nazionale del Circeo e della Tenuta Presidenziale di Castelporziano. I risultati ottenuti mostrano che per un regime idrico intermedio, rappresentato da quello attuale, in cui nessuna delle due specie è avvantaggiata, il duplice ruolo dell’acqua, risorsa-stress, garantisce la coesistenza delle due specie. Tuttavia, il trend con cui la precipitazione sta diminuendo è destinato a destabilizzare tale l’equilibrio nell’arco di qualche decennio, spostando il regime di vegetazione attuale da uno stato di coesistenza ad uno dominato dalle sole specie sclerofille. In generale, il modello è in grado di descrivere la dinamica delle popolazioni delle zone umide delle regioni aride o semi-aride in cui è facile rilevare sovrapposizioni ecologiche tra popolazioni relativamente più xeriche e quelle tipicamente più igrofile. Dottorato di ricerca in Ecologia forestale
- Published
- 2012
12. Coexistence trend contingent to Mediterranean oaks with different leaf habits.
- Author
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Di Paola, Arianna, Paquette, Alain, Trabucco, Antonio, Mereu, Simone, Valentini, Riccardo, and Paparella, Francesco
- Subjects
- *
OAK , *COEXISTENCE of species , *EVAPOTRANSPIRATION , *WATER use - Abstract
In a previous work we developed a mathematical model to explain the co-occurrence of evergreen and deciduous oak groups in the Mediterranean region, regarded as one of the distinctive features of Mediterranean biodiversity. The mathematical analysis showed that a stabilizing mechanism resulting from niche difference (i.e. different water use and water stress tolerance) between groups allows their coexistence at intermediate values of suitable soil water content. A simple formal derivation of the model expresses this hypothesis in a testable form linked uniquely to the actual evapotranspiration of forests community. In the present work we ascertain whether this simplified conclusion possesses some degree of explanatory power by comparing available data on oaks distributions and remotely sensed evapotranspiration (MODIS product) in a large-scale survey embracing the western Mediterranean area. Our findings confirmed the basic assumptions of model addressed on large scale, but also revealed asymmetric responses to water use and water stress tolerance between evergreen and deciduous oaks that should be taken into account to increase the understating of species interactions and, ultimately, improve the modeling capacity to explain co-occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. The spatial association between environmental pollution and long-term cancer mortality in Italy.
- Author
-
Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto, Di Paola, Arianna, Monaco, Alfonso, Velichevskaya, Alena, Amoroso, Nicola, and Bellotti, Roberto
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. Does degradation from selective logging and illegal activities differently impact forest resources? A case study in Ghana.
- Author
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Laurin, Gaia Vaglio, Hawthorne, William D., Chiti, Tommaso, Di Paola, Arianna, Gatti, Roberto Cazzolla, Marconi, Sergio, Noce, Sergio, Grieco, Elisa, Pirotti, Francesco, and Valentini, Riccardo
- Subjects
ECOSYSTEM management ,NATURE conservation ,BIODIVERSITY ,LOGGING ,LAND use - Abstract
Degradation, a reduction of the ecosystem's capacity to supply goods and services, is widespread in tropical forests and mainly caused by human disturbance. To maintain the full range of forest ecosystem services and support the development of effective conservation policies, we must understand the overall impact of degradation on different forest resources. This research investigates the response to disturbance of forest structure using several indicators: soil carbon content, arboreal richness and biodiversity, functional composition (guild and wood density), and productivity. We drew upon large field and remote sensing datasets from different forest types in Ghana, characterized by varied protection status, to investigate impacts of selective logging, and of illegal land use and resources extraction, which are the main disturbance causes in West Africa. Results indicate that functional composition and the overall number of species are less affected by degradation, while forest structure, soil carbon content and species abundance are seriously impacted, with resources distribution reflecting the protection level of the areas. Remote sensing analysis showed an increase in productivity in the last three decades, with higher resiliency to change in drier forest types, and stronger productivity correlation with solar radiation in the short dry season. The study region is affected by growing anthropogenic pressure on natural resources and by an increased climate variability: possible interactions of disturbance with climate are also discussed, together with the urgency to reduce degradation in order to preserve the full range of ecosystem functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. An overview of available crop growth and yield models for studies and assessments in agriculture.
- Author
-
Di Paola, Arianna, Valentini, Riccardo, and Santini, Monia
- Subjects
- *
AGRICULTURE , *CROP yields , *PREDICTION models , *SIMULATION methods & models , *MANAGEMENT - Abstract
The scientific community offers numerous crop models with different levels of sophistication. In such a wide range of crop models, users should have the possibility to choose the most suitable, in terms of detail, scale and representativeness, to their objectives. However, even when an appropriate choice is made, model limitations should be clarified such that modelling studies are put in the proper perspective and robust applications are achieved. This work is an overview of available models to simulate crop growth and yield. A summary matrix with more than 70 crop models is provided, storing the main model characteristics that can help users to choose the proper tool according to their purposes. Overall, we found that two main aspects of models, despite their importance, are not always clear from the published references, i.e. the versatility of the models, in terms of reliable transferability to different conditions, and the degree of complexity. Hence, the developers of models should be encouraged to pay more attention to clarifying the model limitations and limits of applicability, and users should make an effort in proper model selection, to save time often devoted to iteration of tuning steps to force an inappropriate model to be adapted to their own purpose. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
16. Climate Change Threatens Coexistence within Communities of Mediterranean Forested Wetlands.
- Author
-
Di Paola, Arianna, Valentini, Riccardo, and Paparella, Francesco
- Subjects
- *
CLIMATE change research , *WETLANDS , *TREES , *DROUGHTS , *WATER supply , *WATER - Abstract
The Mediterranean region is one of the hot spots of climate change. This study aims at understanding what are the conditions sustaining tree diversity in Mediterranean wet forests under future scenarios of altered hydrological regimes. The core of the work is a quantitative, dynamic model describing the coexistence of different Mediterranean tree species, typical of arid or semi-arid wetlands. Two kind of species, i.e. Hygrophilous (drought sensitive, flood resistant) and Non- hygrophilous (drought resistant, flood sensitive), are broadly defined according to the distinct adaptive strategies of trees against water stress of summer drought and winter flooding. We argue that at intermediate levels of water supply the dual role of water (resource and stress) results in the coexistence of the two kind of species. A bifurcation analysis allows us to assess the effects of climate change on the coexistence of the two species in order to highlight the impacts of predicted climate scenarios on tree diversity. Specifically, the model has been applied to Mediterranean coastal swamp forests of Central Italy located at Castelporziano Estate and Circeo National Park. Our results show that there are distinct rainfall thresholds beyond which stable coexistence becomes impossible. Regional climatic projections show that the lower rainfall threshold may be approached or crossed during the XXI century, calling for an urgent adaptation and mitigation response to prevent biodiversity losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
17. A Phenological Model for Olive (Olea europaea L. var europaea) Growing in Italy.
- Author
-
Di Paola, Arianna, Chiriacò, Maria Vincenza, Di Paola, Francesco, and Nieddu, Giovanni
- Subjects
OLIVE ,NONLINEAR functions ,OLIVE growing ,ATMOSPHERIC temperature - Abstract
The calibration of a reliable phenological model for olive grown in areas characterized by great environmental heterogeneity, like Italy, where many varieties exist, is challenging and often suffers from a lack of observations, especially on budbreak. In this study, we used a database encompassing many phenological events from different olive varieties, years, and sites scattered all over Italy to identify the phases in which site-enlarged developmental rates can be well regressed against air temperature (Developmental Rate function, DR) by testing both linear and nonlinear functions. A K-fold cross-validation (KfCV) was carried out to evaluate the ability of DR functions to predict phenological development. The cross-validation showed that the phases ranging from budbreak (BBCH 01 and 07) to flowering (BBCH 61 and 65) and from the beginning of flowering (BBCH 51) to flowering can be simulated with high accuracy (r
2 = 0.93–0.96; RMSE = 3.9–6.6 days) with no appreciable difference among linear and nonlinear functions. Thus, the resulting DRs represent a simple yet reliable tool for regional phenological simulations for these phases in Italy, paving the way for a reverse modeling approach aimed at reconstructing the budbreak dates. By contrast, and despite a large number of phases explored, no appreciable results were obtained on other phases, suggesting possible interplays of different drivers that need to be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
18. Integrated IoT monitoring system and data science platform to monitor plant conditions under biotic and abiotic factors
- Author
-
Monia, Santini, Paola, Nassisi, Valentina, Scardigno, Carlo, Trotta, Alessandro, D'Anca, Di Paola Arianna, Sandro, Fiore, Giovanni, Aloisio, and Riccardo, Valentini
- Subjects
xylella ,15. Life on land ,plant health - Abstract
In the context of XF-ACTORS project, a IoT based monitoring system has been established and tested in the field - for an olive grove in Puglia (Italy) affected by Xf - to measure in near real-time some parameters proxies of trees’ conditions and vulnerability under both abiotic (climate) and biotic factors. The system is based on the TreeTalker (TT) technology, comprising multiparametric sensors to monitor water transport in trees, trunk humidity and diametrical oscillations, spectral characteristics of the leaves and microclimatic parameters (temperature, relative humidity). In particular, the sap flow density can be retrieved according to the Heat Balance Method (Granier 1985) after measuring the temperature of two 20 mm long probes inserted into the stem wood at 10 cm distance along the trunk vertical axis; the probe in the higher position is heated while the lower one provides the reference temperature. The TT system collects and transmits data at hourly time frequency, thanks to a LoRa based wireless connection, to a node managed by another microcontroller (TT-Cloud) serving a few tens of devices in a cluster. The TT-Cloud is in turn connected to the internet via the GPRS network and sends data to a computer server. Here, raw data are subject to ETL procedure that allows data Extraction from the TT-Cloud source, data Transformation by cleaning and converting them into variables with eco-physiological meaning, and finally data Loading to insert them into the target spatio-temporal database, adopting proper storage format/structure for querying and analysis purpose. From here, data can be further elaborated and visualized, e.g. into useful statistics, through a tailored Data Science environment. The preliminary results on sap flow density are here presented as they can give important information about the impact of Xf that is known obstructing xylem vessels, reducing hydraulic conductivity and thus affecting evapotranspiration., IT; PPT; monia.santini@cmcc.it
19. MiRTaW: An Algorithm for Atmospheric Temperature and Water Vapor Profile Estimation from ATMS Measurements Using a Random Forests Technique.
- Author
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Di Paola, Francesco, Ricciardelli, Elisabetta, Cimini, Domenico, Cersosimo, Angela, Di Paola, Arianna, Gallucci, Donatello, Gentile, Sabrina, Geraldi, Edoardo, Larosa, Salvatore, Nilo, Saverio T., Ripepi, Ermann, Romano, Filomena, Sanò, Paolo, and Viggiano, Mariassunta
- Subjects
ATMOSPHERIC temperature ,WATER vapor ,RANDOM forest algorithms ,METEOROLOGICAL satellites ,WEATHER forecasting - Abstract
A new algorithm for the estimation of atmospheric temperature (T) and water vapor (WV) vertical profiles in nonprecipitating conditions is presented. The microwave random forest temperature and water vapor (MiRTaW) profiling algorithm is based on the random forest (RF) technique and it uses microwave (MW) sounding from the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite. Three different data sources were chosen for both training and validation purposes, namely, the ERA-Interim from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer Atmospheric Temperature Water Vapour and Surface Skin Temperature (IASI L2 v6) from the Meteorological Operational satellites of the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the radiosonde observations from the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA). The period from 2012 to 2016 was considered in the training dataset; particular attention was paid to the instance selection procedure, in order to reduce the full training dataset with negligible information loss. The out-of-bag (OOB) error was computed and used to select the optimal RF parameters. Different RFs were trained, one for each vertical level: 32 levels for T (within 10–1000 hPa) and 23 levels for WV (200–1000 hPa). The validation of the MiRTaW profiling algorithm was conducted on a dataset from 2017. The mean bias error (MBE) of T vertical profiles ranges within about (−0.4–0.4) K, while for the WV mixing ratio, the MBE starts at ~0.5 g/kg near the surface and decreases to ~0 g/kg at 200 hPa level, in line with the expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. The impact of selective logging and clearcutting on forest structure, tree diversity and above-ground biomass of African tropical forests
- Author
-
Francesco Paparella, David A. Coomes, Jeremy A. Lindsell, Riccardo Valentini, Arianna Di Paola, Mauro Maesano, Simona Castaldi, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Marco Marchetti, Cazzolla Gatti, R., Castaldi, Simona, Lindsell, J. A., Coomes, D. A., Marchetti, M., Maesano, M., Di Paola, A., Paparella, F., Valentini, R., Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto, Lindsell, Jeremy A., Coomes, David A., Marchetti, Marco, Maesano, Mauro, Di Paola, Arianna, Paparella, Francesco, Valentini, Riccardo, Cazzolla Gatti R., Castaldi S., Lindsell J.A., Coomes D.A., Marchetti M., Maesano M., Di Paola A., Paparella F., and Valentini R.
- Subjects
Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests ,Clearcutting ,Forest degradation ,Tropical forests ,Agroforestry ,Logging ,Forest management ,Biodiversity ,Selective logging ,Sierra leone ,Bioma ,Tropical forest ,Africa ,Secondary forest ,Environmental science ,Africa, Biodiversity, Biomass, Forest degradation, Selective logging, Tropical forests ,Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Salvage logging - Abstract
Tropical deforestation is well known to have serious negative consequences for biodiversity, terrestrial carbon sinks and the balance of atmospheric greenhouse gases. By contrast, selective logging of tropical forests is often regarded as having a lesser impact on the ecosystem particularly in long terms, even though there have been few critical evaluations of the practice, particularly in Africa. We compared field data from 511 plots in the tropical forest of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cameroon and Gabon. These plots were subject to different forest management practices: no recent logging (primary forests), selective logging (up to 30years old) and re-grown secondary forests post clear-cutting (at least 20years ago). Our findings suggest that the vertical structure and plant richness of the selectively logged and secondary forests change in different amplitude from those of primary forests, but stem density and the prevalence of vine and weed species differ greatly. We show that the effects of selective logging are greater than those expected simply from the removal of commercial species, and can persist for decades. Selective logging, unless it is practiced at very low harvest intensities, can significantly reduce the biomass of a tropical forest for many decades, seriously diminishing aboveground carbon storage capacity, and create opportunities for weeds and vines to spread and slow down the ecological succession.
- Published
- 2014
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