Community Succession in an Urban Novel Forest after Four Decades of Regeneration

ABSTRACT This study aimed to analyse the tree community of an urban forest with 40 years of natural regeneration after abandonment of the degraded land. We hypothesized that after four decades of forest succession, the diversity, structure and functional aspects of the community would be similar to other secondary surrounding forests. We established ten plots (20x 20m), where all trees with DBH ≥ 5 cm were sampled. The inventory included 605 trees (1513 ind.ha-1 ) distributed across 25 species. The diversity index (H’ = 0.92) and basal area (10.43 m2.ha-1) were lower than in surrounding f...