Abstract
Abandonment of traditional land uses has become an ecosystem management concern in many agricultural landscapes. In this study, we investigated the reforested vegetation about half a century after the abandonment of mountain slopes used for terraced fields and wood production on the Yura Peninsula, Ehime Prefecture, southwestern Japan. Multivariate analyses of species composition indicated that, although many endozoochorous evergreen trees were common on the mountain slopes, fern species adapted to inhabiting the stone-wall structures (e.g., Cyrtomium falcatum, Microlepia strigosa, and Asplenium incisum) and common weed species of arable land occurred significantly more frequently in former stone-walled terraced fields than in former unwalled terraced fields and secondary forests. Tree layer composition was influenced by the forest area around the abandoned terraced fields. Moreover, historically less disturbed forests in the southwestern part of the peninsula were core habitats for regionally rare species, such as Jasminanthes mucronata, Firmiana simplex, and Ardisia sieboldii, and some of those species became established within neighboring abandoned terraced fields. These results indicate that land-use legacies, especially stone-walled terracing and historical forest disturbances, influence the revegetation processes of abandoned mountain slopes in warm-temperate coastal areas.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson MJ (2001) A new method for non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance. Austral Ecol 26:32–46
Arita H, Ohkuro T (2007) A maintenance system aimed to control woody vegetation of abandoned fields: study based on a survey of Ohshima-area, Jouetsu-shi, Niigata, Japan. Trans Jpn Soc Irrig Drain Rural Eng 249:255–260 (in Japanese with English summary)
Borcard D, Legendre P (2002) All-scale spatial analysis of ecological data by means of principal coordinates of neighbor matrices. Ecol Model 153:51–68
Braun-Blanquet J (1964) Pflanzensoziologie. Grundzüge der Vegetationskunde, Springer, Vienna
Chibaken-Shiryou-Kenkyuzaidan (2003) Chibaken-no-shizenshi. 4. Chibaken-shokubutsushi [Natural source book of Chiba Prefecture. 4. Flora of Chiba Prefecture]. Chibanippousha, Chiba (in Japanese)
Collier MJ (2013) Field boundary stone walls as exemplars of ‘novel’ ecosystems. Landsc Res 38:141–150
Cramer VA, Hobbs RJ, Standish RJ (2008) What’s new about old fields? Land abandonment and ecosystem assembly. Trends Ecol Evol 23:104–112
Daniel H, Lecamp E (2004) Distribution of three indigenous fern species along a rural-urban gradient in the city of Angers, France. Urban For Urban Green 3:19–27
Dufrene M, Legendre P (1997) Species assemblages and indicator species: the need for a flexible asymmetrical approach. Ecol Monogr 67:345–366
Faith DP, Minchin PR, Belbin L (1987) Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69:57–68
Foster DR, Orwig DA, McLachlan JS (1996) Ecological and conservation insights from reconstructive studies of temperate old-growth forests. Trends Ecol Evol 11:419–424
Foster D, Swanson F, Aber J, Burke I, Brokaw N, Tilman D, Knapp A (2003) The importance of land-use legacies to ecology and conservation. Bioscience 53:77–88
Harada M (1994) Yura-Hantou [Yura Peninsula]. Atlas-shuppan, Matsuyama (in Japanese)
Hattori T, Ishida H, Hashimoto Y, Minamiyama N, Tamura K, Asami K (2004) Comparison between mature phase and gap phase of lucidophyllous forest with regard to species composition and species richness. Jpn J Ecol 51:11–24 (in Japanese with English summary)
Hattori T, Minamiyama N, Kuroda A (2012) Phytosociological system of the natural lucidophyllous forests in Japan. Hum Nat 23:1–29 (in Japanese with English summary)
Hobbs RJ, Walker LR (2007) Old field succession: development of concepts. In: Cramer VA, Hobbs RJ (eds) Old fields. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 17–30
Hobbs RJ, Higgs E, Harris JA (2009) Novel ecosystems: implications for conservation and restoration. Trends Ecol Evol 24:599–605
Iwatsuki K (1999) Ferns and fern allies of Japan. Heibonsha, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Kuroda A, Hattori T (2008) Development of pteridophyte community in levees protected by wooden blocks and its contribution to revegetation. Landsc Res Jpn 71:581–584 (in Japanese with English summary)
Kuroda A, Sawada Y, Kodate S, Hattori T (2009) Species composition and structure of plantation forest understory modified by slope protection: establishment of terrestrial pteridophytes and factors promoting their growth. Jpn J Conserv Ecol 14:55–65 (in Japanese with English summary)
Lawson D, Inouye RS, Huntly N, Carson WP (1999) Patterns of woody plant abundance, recruitment, mortality, and growth in a 65 year chronosequence of old fields. Plant Ecol 145:267–279
Legendre P, Legendre L (1998) Numerical ecology, 2nd English edn. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Matsumoto S (2003) Species ecological study on reproductive systems and speciation of Cyromium falcatum complex (Dryopteridaceae) in Japanese archipelago. Ann Tsukuba Bot Gard 22:1–141
Meiners SJ, Pickett STA, Handel SN (2002) Probability of tree seedling establishment changes across a forest–old field edge gradient. Am J Bot 89:446–471
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (2011) Census of agriculture and forestry. http://www.maff.go.jp/census/. Accessed 27 December 2011
Miyamoto H (2006) Danbata-kara-no-kotodzute (Messages from terraced fields). Soufusha, Matsuyama (in Japanese)
Miyawaki A, Okuda S, Fujiwara R (1994) Handbook of Japanese vegetation. Shibundo, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Osawa K (1953) Uchiumi-sonshi-jyokan (The history of Uchiumi-village. Volume 1). Ogami Insatsusho, Yawatahama (in Japanese)
R Development Core Team (2013) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna
Sato T, Nakata M (2008) Factors affecting forest formation in abandoned terraced paddy fields in a mountainous region. J Jpn For Soc 90:364–371 (in Japanese with English summary)
Tarolli P, Preti F, Romano N (2014) Terraced landscapes: from an old best practice to a potential hazard for soil degradation due to land abandonment. Anthropocene. doi:10.1016/j.ancene.2014.03.002
Tokuoka Y, Ohigashi K, Nakagoshi N (2011) Limitations on tree seedling establishment across ecotones between abandoned fields and adjacent broad-leaved forests in eastern Japan. Plant Ecol 212:923–944
Uchiumi-sonshi-hensan-iinkai (2004) Shintei-Uchiumi-sonshi (The history of Uchiumi village: new edition). Gyousei Co. Shikoku branch, Matsuyama (in Japanese)
Uehara K (1961) Illustrated encyclopedia of trees, vol II. Ariake Shobou, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Wakamori T (1961) Uwa-chitai-no-minzoku (Folklore of Uwa region). Yoshikawakoubunkan, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Yamada K (1952) The study of terraced fields in the southern part of Ehime prefecture. Jpn J Hum Geogr 5:392–410 (in Japanese with English summary)
Yamagawa H, Ito S, Nakao T (2007) Edge effects from a natural evergreen broadleaved forest patch on advanced regeneration and natural forest recovery after clear-cutting of a sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) plantation. Jpn Soc For Environ 49:111–122
Yamagawa H, Ito S, Nakao T (2013) Seed dispersal in clear-cut stands adjacent to lucidophyllous forest in 1 to 6 years after clear-cut. Jpn J Ecol 63:219–228
Yamanaka T (1971) The forest vegetation in southwestern Shikoku. Kochi-daigaku-gakujyutsu-kenkyu-houkoku-shizenhen 19:17–42 (in Japanese with English summary)
Acknowledgments
We thank all the villagers who consented to being interviewed, Mr. Shota Ninomiya for his assistance in the field survey, and Mr. Shozo Fujita and Mr. Hirofumi Oda for their help in gathering historical information. This study was supported by a grant for research on the Seto Inland Sea culture from the Fukutake Foundation and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant (26870835).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
About this article
Cite this article
Tokuoka, Y., Hashigoe, K. Effects of stone-walled terracing and historical forest disturbances on revegetation processes after the abandonment of mountain slope uses on the Yura Peninsula, southwestern Japan. J For Res 20, 24–34 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10310-014-0471-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10310-014-0471-0