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<p>The increasing demand for raw materials favours habitat conversion into tree plantations in different biomes over the world. In Argentina, fast-growing plantations occur in physiognomically contrasting biomes, such as the subtropical forest and grassland. Our objectives were to analyze variations in basic habitat metrics and their similarity to the natural habitat along pine plantation cycles, and to compare those patterns between plantations developing in a subtropical forest and a grassland biome. In each biome we selected pine stands of eight ages to represent the environmental gradient of the forest cycle, and natural areas. At each site we estimated the temperature, thermal variability, relative humidity, and percentage coverage of herbaceous plants, shrubs and canopy. We explored environmental similarity between plantations and the natural habitat. In general, patterns of the environmental variables along plantation chronosequences were similar between plantations developing in different biomes. As expected, opposite patterns of similarity in most environmental variables between plantations and the natural habitat were observed along chronosequences developing in contrasting biomes. The time period of high environmental similarity between plantations and the natural environment was longer in the subtropical forest than in the grassland. Our results have implications for land use planning and biodiversity conservation.</p>
</abstract>

The increasing demand for raw materials favours habitat conversion into tree plantations in different biomes over the world. In Argentina, fast-growing plantations occur in physiognomically contrasting biomes, such as the subtropical forest and grassland. Our objectives were to analyze variations in basic habitat metrics and their similarity to the natural habitat along pine plantation cycles, and to compare those patterns between plantations developing in a subtropical forest and a grassland biome. In each biome we selected pine stands of eight ages to represent the environmental gradient of the forest cycle, and natural areas. At each site we estimated the temperature, thermal variability, relative humidity, and percentage coverage of herbaceous plants, shrubs and canopy. We explored environmental similarity between plantations and the natural habitat. In general, patterns of the environmental variables along plantation chronosequences were similar between plantations developing in different biomes. As expected, opposite patterns of similarity in most environmental variables between plantations and the natural habitat were observed along chronosequences developing in contrasting biomes. The time period of high environmental similarity between plantations and the natural environment was longer in the subtropical forest than in the grassland. Our results have implications for land use planning and biodiversity conservation.

Variations in habitat metrics along plantation chronosequences: contrasting tree plantations in subtropical forest and grassland

Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales

Universidad de Buenos Aires - IEGEBA (CONICET-UBA)

Instituto de Biología Sub-tropical - Facultad de Ciencias Forestales

Universidad Nacional de Misiones - CONICET

Forestry Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The increasing demand for raw materials favours habitat conversion into tree plantations in different biomes over the world. In Argentina, fast-growing...

	Grassland	Subtropical forest
Environmental variable	Model	Model
Temperature	Logistic	Logistic
Thermal variability	Logistic	Logistic
Relative humidity	Null	Logistic
Canopy cover	Logistic	Logistic
Herbaceous cover	Logistic	Null
Sim temperature	Logistic	Logistic
Sim thermal variability	Logistic	Line
Sim relative humidity	Null	Logistic
Sim canopy cover	Logistic	Logistic
Sim herbaceous cover	Logistic	Null
Sim total	Logistic	Logistic

Variations in habitat metrics along plantation chronosequences: contrasting tree plantations in subtropical forest and grassland

Article Category: Research paper

Publié en ligne: 04 juin 2022

Pages: 55 - 63

Reçu: 03 nov. 2021

Accepté: 14 déc. 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fsmu-2021-0011

Mots clés
environmental variables, monoculture, land use planning, pine, regional context, silviculture

© 2021 Santiago Santoandré et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Model selection for environmental variables in relation with the age of pine plantations, and for the similarity in environmental variables between plantations and the natural environment (Sim) with plantation age.

Variations in habitat metrics along plantation chronosequences: contrasting tree plantations in subtropical forest and grassland

Article Category: Research paper

Publié en ligne: 04 juin 2022

Pages: 55 - 63

Reçu: 03 nov. 2021

Accepté: 14 déc. 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fsmu-2021-0011

Mots clésenvironmental variables, monoculture, land use planning, pine, regional context, silviculture

© 2021 Santiago Santoandré et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Model selection for environmental variables in relation with the age of pine plantations, and for the similarity in environmental variables between plantations and the natural environment (Sim) with plantation age.

Mots clés
environmental variables, monoculture, land use planning, pine, regional context, silviculture