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The patch mosaic of an old-growth warm-temperate forest: patch-level descriptions of 40-year gap-forming processes and community structures

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Ecological Research

Abstract

Old-growth forests consist of various types of small patches that reflect their own gap-forming process, which includes changes in environmental conditions occurring over several decades. We reconstructed the gap-forming processes that had occurred during a 40-year period for eight representative patches of an old-growth evergreen broad-leaved forest in Japan, and examined the current community structure. The selected patches were based on (1) changes in canopy heights estimated from aerial photographs taken in four different years, (2) long-term ecological research (LTER) monitoring records, and (3) a recent field survey, so that they sufficiently covered characteristic gap-forming processes such as a new gap, an old gap and consistently closed canopy. Height and diameter at breast height (DBH) were measured on all living trees taller than 1.3 m. In their height distributions, currently almost closed patches that were open in 1966 show a rotated sigmoid, whereas their DBH distributions are an inverse J-shape. In contrast, patches that have been consistently under a closed canopy exhibit gentle inverse J-shapes for both distributions. For species composition, there are no clear contrasts associated with the past gap-forming processes except for the existence of fast-growing deciduous species in large currently open patches. Our results suggested that the variation in several decades of gap-forming processes played a central role in the high patch diversity and the complex patch mosaic of the forest. Diverse gap-forming processes created micro-environmental heterogeneity both vertically and horizontally, and contributed to the maintenance of the species-rich, warm-temperate old-growth forest.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. A. Itaya for helping us draw the canopy maps. Staff from the Nagasaki Forest Office and the Hotel Tachibana gave their kind support. We are grateful to H. Itoh and H. Yamakawa for their help in the field survey. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Science Research (No. 14206017 and 16380111) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan, and by the ISM Cooperative Research Program (2004-ISM-CRP-2048 and 2005-ISM-CRP-2041) and ISM Project Research 2004. Dr. Y. Iwasa and three anonymous reviewers made valuable suggestions and helpful comments to improve an earlier draft of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History, Kitakyushu, 805-0071, Japan

    Tohru Manabe

  2. The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 4-6-7 Minami-Azabu, Minato, Tokyo, 106-8569, Japan

    Kenichiro Shimatani

  3. Transdisciplinary Research Integration Center, 4-6-7 Minami-Azabu, Minato, Tokyo, 106-8569, Japan

    Satoko Kawarasaki

  4. Department of Forest Vegetation, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687, Japan

    Shin-Ichi Aikawa

  5. Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Physiology, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    Shin-Ichi Yamamoto

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  1. Tohru Manabe
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  2. Kenichiro Shimatani
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  3. Satoko Kawarasaki
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  4. Shin-Ichi Aikawa
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Correspondence to Tohru Manabe.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 4 The stem density (per 100 m2) in each size class in each patch
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Manabe, T., Shimatani, K., Kawarasaki, S. et al. The patch mosaic of an old-growth warm-temperate forest: patch-level descriptions of 40-year gap-forming processes and community structures. Ecol Res 24, 575–586 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-008-0528-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-008-0528-7

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