Estructura Y Dinamica De Bosques Del Tipo Forestal Siempreverde en Un Sector De Chiloe Insular

Abstract

A study on structural and dynamic cha racterization of the forest was carried out in an area of the evergreen forest type lo cated in the neighbourhoods of Chepu, in the Isla Grande de Chiloé. Four stands on undisturbed forests were selected and 54 x 72 m plots were established in each one of them. Data for drawing vertical profi les, for crown classification, stand tables, diameter distribution diagrams, understo rey composition and structure and for spatial distribution of the species using the Morisita Index, were collected. Fur thermore a soil analysis in each stand was performed with the purpose of studying its morphologic variation and some chemical characteristics related to soil dynamics. Results show that the sampled stands are floristically and structurally similar and that they grow on two soil condi tions. Structure of the forests are charac terized by the presence of emergent trees of Eucryphia cordifolia Cav. and nume rous specimens of Laurelia philippiana Losser. Amomyrtus luma (Mol.) Legr. et Kauss. is the most characteristics species of these stands due to its abundance and the frequency of "creeping" trees.

Forest Typification to Characterize the Structure and Composition of Old-growth Evergreen Forests on Chiloe Island, North Patagonia (Chile)

“…Previous studies in the forests of central Chiloé have reported statistically significant relationships between diameter and age for several of the main species in this study [8,11,16]. Consequently, it is possible to interpret the dynamics and successional stage of these forests based on their diameter structure and regeneration, especially in this study where variations in structure and composition are not the result of environment or site, which is homogeneous in the study area.…”

“…UPGMA is a consistent agglomerative clustering algorithm in which between-group dissimilarities are calculated as the average of all possible pairs of members of each group [28]. To perform the cluster analysis we included all the tree species from this study and those reported by other authors for evergreen forests of the North-Patagonian archipelago [8][9][10]13,[16][17][18] (see list of tree species in supplementary Table S1). This approach could be influenced by the different sampling effort between studies, but since we focused the analysis only on tree species, this should not be a problem.…”

“…The tree species composition from the present study showed a greater similarity to the North-Patagonian forests of the Taitao Peninsula (JI = 0.538) and the North-Patagonian forest studied by Gutierrez et al [13] (JI = 0.529) as compared with the forests of central and northern Chiloé (JI mean = 0.293). [18], Chiloé_N2 = North-Patagonian forest of Gutiérrez et al [13], and Group 2: Chiloé_C = Armesto and Fuentes [17], Chiloe_C2 = Donoso et al [9], Chiloé_C3 = Veblen [16], Chiloé_ARC = Armesto and Figueroa [10], Chiloé_N1 = Valdivian forest of Gutiérrez et al [13], Chiloé_NW = Donoso et al [8]. Note: Different letters indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between each forest group, n = number of plots; * Understory woody species.…”

“…Currently, Chiloé Island (41°48' S-43°27' S) has an approximate area of 550,000 ha covered by the Evergreen forest type in different stages of development and conservation [7]. In the last three decades, a series of studies on the ecology, dynamics and structure of forests in northern and central Chiloé have been published (e.g., [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]). These studies refer to the Evergreen forest type, when oriented to forestry, or to either Valdivian of North-Patagonian temperate rainforests, a phytogeographical division developed by Veblen et al [15] that is usually followed in forest ecology studies.…”

Soil quality indicators in an Andisol under different tree covers in disturbed Nothofagus forests

“…For soil sampling, we established a randomized complete design with three replicates (plots) randomly distributed in each tree cover level. All plots had a size of 50 × 50 m (following the recommendations of Donoso et al, 1984), a slope ranging from 10% to 15%, a uniform aspect, and were located at similar elevations (1200 m a.s.l.) (Table 1).…”