Form Submission: Participation Entry

Tropical dry forest throughout the world is threatened by human activities due to economic conditions that lead to deforestation such as agriculture, fuelwood harvest, livestock grazing, among others. However, communities are taking steps to protect these forests. Few studies have reported on the impact of protected areas in tropical dry forests. Evidence indicates that dry forest may be more resilient to human disturbance than rain forest, but to achieve conservation goals it is important to understand how dry forest responds to a reduction in disturbance. Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve in southern Madagascar, is a community-managed forest that has been protected for over 30 years. This study aims to understand how different levels of human-caused disturbance in Southern Madagascar is influencing structure, diversity, and composition of the dry forest. By comparing the composition and diversity of the forest canopy and regenerating species we determined that niche-partitioning as influenced by soil composition and moisture availability, causes more variation in richness and diversity of canopy species than does disturbance. Disturbance, on the other hand, plays a greater role in richness and diversity variation among regenerating trees in the understory, than does site condition. Fuelwood harvest, and livestock grazing, two of the strongest human pressures on the forest, are likely the main contributors to the varying levels of diversity among regenerating trees, and may be changing the successional dynamics of the forest. The varying levels of disturbance inside and outside of the protected area provides evidence that regeneration of dry forest is vulnerable to the selective pressure of livestock grazing and fuelwood harvest. Forest managers must account for the way in which both human and natural pressures are changing successional dynamics of the forest as it effects future habitat of many threatened endemic wildlife species.