Abstract
Worldwide, land use change is largely promoting intense biodiversity loss in many ecosystems, and Mexico is no exception to this. The information on how such changes have affected community structure, composition, and different components of plant biodiversity in Mexican tropical montane forests is scarce. This study aimed to assess how land use changes have affected: ecological diversity, taxonomic distinctness, and functional diversity, in Mexican montane cloud forests. We measured species composition and abundance in 10 × 10 m plots placed in different land use/land cover types, with increasing disturbance levels: preserved forest, regeneration forest, transition forest, coffee plantation, and pastureland. We quantified plant ecological diversity through Hill’s true diversity values, taxonomic diversity with the taxonomic distinctness index, and functional diversity through functional richness and Rao’s functional diversity index. We found that species composition varied with land use change. Furthermore, ecological diversity, taxonomic distinctness and functional diversity were lower in the disturbed sites (coffee plantations and pastureland) than in the more conserved forests. Soil type, rockiness, elevation, and disturbance intensity were major factors influencing plant communities’ different dimensions of diversity. Analyzing different components of biodiversity was a useful approach to understand current and possible future responses of tropical montane forests to changes in land use. Our results highlight the relevance of conserving and restoring these forests. Long-term conservation actions would need stopping intensive and extensive logging, reducing forest transformation, and promoting habitat heterogeneity that hosts different levels of diversity.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank C. Maximiliano-Cordova for preparing the map of the study sites and Linda Trejo Morales for her assistance in preparing the data matrices for statistical analyses. We are also very grateful to the editors and reviewers whose comments on earlier versions of the text largely improved the article.
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This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Proyect No. 285962) and Instituto de Ecología, A.C.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Gonzalo Castillo Campos, M. Luisa Martínez and Gabriela Vazquez contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and initial analysis were performed by Gonzalo Castillo Campos and Mirna R. Zamudio Pérez. Conceptualization: Gonzalo Castillo Campos; Methodology: Gonzalo Castillo Campos; Formal analysis and investigation: M. Luisa Martínez, Gonzalo Castillo Campos, Gabriela Vazquez, José G. García Franco and Octavio Pérez-Maqueo; Writing—original draft preparation: Mirna R. Zamudio Pérez and Gonzalo Castillo Campos; Writing—review and editing: M. Luisa Martínez, Gonzalo Castillo Campos, Gabriela Vazquez, José G. García Franco and Octavio Pérez-Maqueo; Funding acquisition: Gabriela Vázquez; Resources:CONACYT. The first draft of the manuscript was written by M. Luisa Martínez, Gonzalo Castillo Campos, Gabriela Vazquez, José G. García Franco and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
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Castillo-Campos, G., García-Franco, J.G., Martínez, M.L. et al. Assessing the impact of land use change on different components of plant diversity in a tropical montane cloud forest of Mexico. Biodivers Conserv 33, 1523–1559 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-024-02814-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-024-02814-z