Ecological Research

, Volume 28, Issue 6, pp 1081–1090 | Cite as

Structural and floristic behaviors in East Timor forest vegetation

  • António L. Crespí
  • Marco Ferreira
  • Teresa F. Fonseca
  • Carlos Pacheco Marques
Original Article
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Owing to the growing demand for the products supplied and to the slowness of their renewal, forests, the most important renewable resource of the East Timor lands, will lose the goods and services they provide unless this situation is overcome. The communities that live in these forests or in their vicinity will be the most affected by this problem. Understanding the structural organization of the East Timor forest flora is, therefore, critical for sustainable management of this natural resource. Thus, the main purpose of this preliminary study was to identify the differences in the floristic–structural behaviors of the woody vegetation. The study is based on data collected by the first National Forest Inventory (2008–2010), carried out in two environmentally different districts of East Timor: one drier region located to the north (Bobonaro district) and the other more humid, located in the south (Covalima district). A two-stage sampling method was employed to account for species in 923 sample stations: 480 in the Bobonaro district and 443 in the Covalima district. These data were correlated with environmental variables (altitude, distance to sea, distance to the north coast, distance to roads, and distance to urban areas) and discussed based on the floristic–structural randomness of the species frequencies. Randomness was adopted here as a parameter to quantify the distributional relationship among species with spatial heterogeneity. Results show a higher percentage of species with low frequencies and abundances for the south (lower human pressure), in contrast with the north (higher human pressure). Altitude also emerges as an environmental parameter, since this randomness floristic–structural combination decreases from lower to higher altitudes. This research provides an innovative approach to describing the structural–floristic organization of vegetation, and its correlation with environmental variables.

Keywords

Monsoon dry forest Biodiversity Randomness Environmental variable 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This study was developed under the Second Rural Development Project for Timor-Leste (RDP-II).

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Copyright information

© The Ecological Society of Japan 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • António L. Crespí
    • 1
  • Marco Ferreira
    • 2
  • Teresa F. Fonseca
    • 3
    • 4
  • Carlos Pacheco Marques
    • 3
  1. 1.Department of Biology and Environment-CITAB, Botanical Garden and HerbariumUniversity of Trás-os-Montes e Alto DouroVila RealPortugal
  2. 2.URZE-Associação Florestal da Encosta da Serra da EstrelaGouveiaPortugal
  3. 3.Department of Forest Sciences and Landscape ArchitectureUniversity of Trás-os-Montes e Alto DouroVila RealPortugal
  4. 4.Univ Lisboa, CEF, ISALisbonPortugal

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