Out of steady state: Tracking canopy gap dynamics across Brazilian Amazon

Background

Canopy gaps are a regular characteristic of natural or anthropogenic disturbance in forested landscapes. Gap-creating disturbances often result in a forest mosaic with patches of varying successional stages. Many species in tropical forests depend on these canopy gaps for regeneration. Field monitoring of canopy gaps can be difficult due to time constraints and plot size, making tropical gap dynamics an understudied topic.

Goals and Methods

The authors investigate canopy gap dynamics and distribution in Amazonian upland forest landscapes of Brazil. Using lidar data, the authors aim to understand gap sizes and distributions among sites over approximately three years and determine any differences in gap dynamics between the four sites.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Each site contained many small gaps and few large gaps, with even size distributions across all four sites. The authors conclude that gap size and distribution do not vary across the four sites, but within each site, gaps varied over time. Certain sites recovered from gaps more quickly than others. The authors state that taking into account the temporal dynamics of gap recovery are important to consider when making decisions about the protection and management of tropical forests.