Influências do espaço, do ambiente e do histórico de uso em uma floresta mista subtropical

Abstract

One of the main goals of the science of ecology is to uncover the factors that influence community assembly and structure. Recent research has pointed that both environmental and stochastic factors play an important role, although their relative importance change from one community to another. Distinct mechanisms seem to act on ecological species groups and on different spatial scales. In the present work we investigate the contribution of environmental, spatial and historical factors on the structure of a subtropical mixed forest. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) Stochasatic factors, represented by the purely spatial fraction of compositional variation, are more influential in recently impacted communities, while environmental factors are more influential in mature communities. (2) Stochastic factors are more strongly related to better dispersed ecological groups. (3) Historic and spatial factors prevail among rare species but not among abundant species. We found that environmental factors were as important as stochastic spatial factors in shaping community structure. Environmental, historical, and spatial factors had different relative importances in each of 5 ecological species groups. The inclusion of historical disturbance factors in community composition analysis can deepen our understanding of community assembly and structure.