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J.L. Hernández-Stefanoni et al. 2010. Effects of landscape structure and stand age on species richness and biomass
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structure and spatial dependence had a comparable or even stronger effect on species diversity
than stand age. These results are consistent with recent findings in tropical forests showing that
long-term monitoring data follow chronosequence patterns for basal area, but not for species
density, indicating that stand age largely determines basal area –and biomass, whereas species
density seems to be strongly affected by other factors operating at the local and landscape level
(Chazdon et al. 2007).
Our results also show that, for juveniles, pure spatial dependence appears to be the most
important predictor of both species density and biomass. This result could either imply strong
dispersal/recruitment limitation, or be due to an environmental component that was not
considered, such as topographic or soil variables (Jones et al, 2008).
PCNM submodels allowed us to link the spatial distribution of species density and
biomass to stand age and landscape structure at different spatial scales. At the very broad scale,
stand age contributed most to biomass, and landscape structure to species density. At the broad
scale, stand age contributed most to both species density and biomass.
Finally, we found a strong negative association between species density and PD and
SHAPE_AM, as well as a positive association between species density and edge density (ED).
These results may suggest that moderate levels of disturbance may enhance species richness in a
forest-dominated landscape. However, high levels of disturbance resulting in a high degree of
fragmentation can have a strong negative impact on species richness (Hill and Curran, 2003).
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