The effects of human disturbances on tree species diversity of a tropical montane forest in Malaysia

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K24386
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 1101:Environmental analyses and evaluation, environmental conservation measure and related fields
• Research Institution: Musashino University
• Principal Investigator: Ioki Keiko 武蔵野大学, 工学部, 講師 (70838705)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-08-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 熱帯山地林 / 人為攪乱 / 生物多様性 / ボルネオ / LANDSAT

Outline of Final Research Achievements

With the rapid deforestation and degradation of tropical montane forests attributed to anthropogenic activities, appropriate conservation planning is urgently needed. Here, we compared tree community composition of secondary forests in Malaysia, which experienced different anthropogenic disturbances. We also investigated the use of metrics from Landsat time series change detection algorithm to identify characteristics of disturbances and their linkage to the recovery of tree community composition. Among derived metrics, time since disturbance, magnitude of disturbance, distance to undisturbed forests, and year to recovery were significantly related with the similarity in community composition. Our results suggest that spectral trajectories from Landsat time series can serve as a useful predictor of community composition change in recovering tropical montane forests.

Free Research Field

景観生態学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

研究事例の多い熱帯低地林に比べ、熱帯山地林では撹乱の影響や森林の回復に関する基礎的な情報が不足している。本研究では熱帯山地林において木本の属レベルでの群集組成が森林の回復を表す重要な指標となることが明らかとなり、さらに回復期にある二次林の群集組成を予測するのに有効な情報が時系列LANDSATデータから得られることが分かった。この結果は人為的な撹乱の増加が予想される熱帯山地林において保全計画を整備する際の知見として寄与できると考えられる。