Sucessão florestal em área atingida por tempestade convectiva na região de Manaus, Amazônia Central

Abstract

Forest succession in a convective windstorm damage area in Manaus region, Central Amazon - Natural disturbances are key processes for landscape formation and transformation. Yet, the biotic and physiographic changes that occur are not exclusively related to disturbance. Convective storms produce low frequency disturbances that affect the forest in different ways. In the Amazon rainforest, downbursts are produced by convective storms embedded in squall lines, and formed by the contrasting pressure and temperature between air masses. They are followed by storms, strong winds and unusual electricity discharges. These downbursts cause blowdowns that are characterized by intense tree mortality and changes in canopy structure. The effect of blowdowns on the forest structure, associated regeneration, and succession processes are not fully understood. This work describes the floristic composition and horizontal structure, and the comparison between two different sites. One of them was a (remaining) secondary forest after an intense blowdown associated with a squall line that stuck the Amazon basin in January, 2005. The second was a pristine forest some 5 km far from the disturbed area. In both sites the original vegetation is characterized by evergreen forest with a mean canopy height of ~30 m. The studied sites are located in Manaus region, in the Cuieras river basin (02 ̊33’ S; 60 ̊16’ W), state of Amazonas, Brazil. In the disturbed forest the seed rain was measured during a 12 month period. The 1,944 trees sampled in the disturbed forest were distribuit in 50 families, 143 genus and 284 species. Five years after the disturbance, the stem density averaged 442.6 ± 46.5 stems.ha -1 (CI 95%) and basal area averaged 17.6 ± 3.2 m 2 .ha -1 (CI= 95%). These means are lower than the pristine forest figures, which averaged 584.3 ± 26.9 stems.ha -1 and 27.4 ± 1.8 m 2 .ha -1 , respectively. However, the diameter distributions of pristine and disturbed forests have shown a very weak evidence (p= 0.864) that they are different suggesting that the storm damaged all of diameter size classes. The density of dead stems was different between the pristine and disturbed areas (p<0.001). In the disturbed areas, the sloped terrain had density of dead stems (130 ± 33 stems.ha -1 ) higher than in (“baixios”) valleys (72,7 ± 29,9 stems.ha -1 ) and plateaus (93,7 ± 33,7 stems.ha -1 ) as well. The tree species richness (284) and diversity (Shannon index: H’= 4.77 nats.ind. -1 ) in the disturbed were lower than in the pristine forest (917 and 5.85, respectively).However, the species richnnes and diversity of the disturbed forest were similar to those observed in other forests in the Central Amazon. In the large gaps the density and frequency of pioneer species were higher than in intact areas, which suggest that in large gaps the environmental conditions are adequately to the pioneer species establishment. During one year period we found 5,366 seeds from 232 different tree species. The mean density of seeds was 24.8 ± 16.9 seeds.(m 2 ) - 1 .year -1 (CI= 95%), and the mean species richness was 14.9 ± 0.3 species.(m 2 ) -1 .year -1 (CI= 95%). The species richness changed over time (p< 0.00001).