Environmental and socioeconomic drivers of woody vegetation recovery in a human‐modified landscape in the Rio Grande basin (Colombian Andes)

Abstract

In the tropics, some agricultural lands are abandoned for economic or technical reasons, leading to the recovery of woody vegetation. Our research aimed to identify the main drivers of spontaneous recovery of vegetation in a basin located in the Colombian Andes. This was done by combining spatially explicit environmental and socioeconomic variables at landscape (e.g. distances to human settlements, to roads, and to forests and mean annual precipitation) and local scales (e.g. depth of the organic layer, soil bulk density, and canopy openness). These variables were measured in 28 temporal plots of 500 m2 each, established in land cover transitions that showed the recovery of woody vegetation. The recovered woody vegetation between 1986 and 2012 exhibited a gregarious spatial pattern at the landscape scale. Ordination analysis showed distinct floristic composition among transitions and remnant forests, and species associated to each one through an indicator species analysis. Multivariate analyses revealed the relationship between the transitions and variables at both scales. Woody vegetation recovery occurred near remnant forests and far from human settlements at the landscape scale. The soil conditions (content and depth of the organic horizon and bulk density) were the main drivers at the local scale. Our findings also highlight the necessity to define different restoration approaches such as incorporation of sites where socioeconomic and environmental conditions favor the spontaneous recovery of vegetation into the existing network of protected areas in the region, and to implement active restoration projects in perturbed sites to accelerate the recovery process of Andean forests.

Predicting landscape‐scale biodiversity recovery by natural tropical forest regrowth

“…As a consequence, the capacity of species to recover in these landscapes is lower (Arroyo‐Rodríguez et al., 2017; Martínez‐Ramos et al., 2016; Sansevero et al., 2017; Zermeño‐Hernández et al., 2015). In the absence of strong socioeconomic pressures for forest conversion, landscapes with higher ecosystem productivity, water availability, and favorable soil conditions are characterized by higher capacity of species to recover (Camelo et al., 2017; Rozendaal et al., 2019). Therefore, landscapes with favorable ecological and biophysical conditions and low socioeconomic pressures on land‐use change are crucial for increasing the chances of biodiversity recovery in second‐growth forests (Crouzeilles et al., 2021).…”

Disrupted montane forest recovery hinders biodiversity conservation in the tropical Andes

“…Based on time series and shape-fitting analysis, a short permanence of regrowing forests and reforestation reversal was detected across Latin American secondary forests, compromising continental-scale carbon stores (Schwartz et al, 2020). Another remote sensing study at the Colombian scale detected woody vegetation recovery areas using Landsat data and found that recovery occurred near remnant forests and with distance from settlements and highlighted the need to evaluate socio-ecological conditions to define restoration approaches (Camelo et al, 2017). 3.…”

A synthesis and future research directions for tropical mountain ecosystem restoration

“…While most studies were primary research including fieldwork, secondary research made up less than 15% of all studies, mostly as reviews 86 , 90 – 92 , reports 93 , 94 , model studies 88 , 95 , 96 and as five remote sensing studies 6 , 61 , 81 , 97 , 98 .…”