No abstract

The Chanchamayo valley in the Peruvian Andes formerly contained large areas of montane and premontane tropical forests, although logging and agricultural expansion has resulted in extensive deforestation and habitat fragmentation. This study evaluates the regional context of the valley by a comparison of data from a series of one hectare plots giving data on the diversity and structure of treeş 10 dbh, and then examines in more detail data from a 1 ha plot located in a newly declared conservation area (Pampa Hermosa Reserved Zone) embodying one of the most intact forest remains. An explicit goal was also to test the eYcacy of sampling using taxonomic surrogacy, which could provide an eVective means of making more eYcient such work among diverse tropical forests. The Cedros de Pampa Hermosa plot contained 444 individuals belonging to 135 species, 66 genera and 35 families. The families Lauraceae, Meliaceae, Moraceae and Urticaceae provided over half of the individuals counted. The high representation of Urticaceae species suggests a disturbance regime driven by the large sizes of the Meliaceae species and their 2966 Biodivers Conserv (2007) 16:2965-29881 C dynamics on steep slopes. Indicator species analyses supported other evidence that this site at 1,600 m is located in a broad ecotonal area transitioning to premontane and lowland rain forests. Ordinations (nMDS) based on Bray-Curtis similarities and total abundance, basal areas and presence-absence data of the 598 species (3,469 individuals) found on all seven one hectare plots sampled in the valley showed a clear separation into three tree assemblage types, namely the lower montane site, and two others on the eastern and western sides of the valley. Ordination patterns were quite similar at species and family level, but did not show any site groupings at the generic level, suggesting important turnover of species and families along environmental gradients. A number of species could not be allocated to known taxonomic groups, and were evaluated as morphotaxa. The inclusion or exclusion of such taxa did not dramatically alter the main ordination patterns within taxonomic levels of botanical family or of species, which implies that rapid inventory methods and incomplete identiWcations can still provide data useful for conservation planning in this and similar forests.

No abstract

Forest restoration projects involving active planting should prioritize species that are useful to local communities, while also considering species' threat status and resistance to local stress factors, but scientific knowledge on these criteria is scarce, especially in understudied tropical ecosystems. We hypothesized that local ecological knowledge can help to fill this gap. Through interviews with 47 local experts and 197 randomly selected households in 8 rural communities of the tropical dry forests of northwestern Peru and southern Ecuador, we identified the species perceived as most useful, most threatened, and most resistant to local stress factors. To better understand the studied local ecological knowledge, we also explored the following research questions and their implications for species selection decisions: (1) How does species' potential usefulness compare to their active use? (2) How does species' perceived threat status relate to their usefulness? (3) Does local knowledge on species' resistance to local stress factors corroborate scientific knowledge? We found large differences between the potential and active use of species and illustrate how data on both can yield useful insights. Furthermore, we found that species' perceived threat status was mainly linked to their usefulness for construction wood, and that the vast majority of local perceptions on species' threat status and stress resistance coincided with scientific knowledge. Our findings illustrate the large potential of local ecological knowledge for improving species selection strategies and thereby increasing the success of forest restoration efforts worldwide.