CRB: Testing Enrichment Planting in Fragmented Tropical Landscapes

拟议的项目将通过实验测试蝙蝠和鸟类传播种子的功效，与风传播种子相比，在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯州，在作物，牧场和森林残留物的强烈改变的农业镶嵌中，克服热带树木的传播限制。 最近制定的标准，选择后期演替物种，在牧场环境中生存良好，将用于种植8个半公顷（公顷）网格的后期演替风分散（9种）和先锋（3种）乔木和8个相似的晚期演替网格（9种）和先锋（3种）动物分散的树木在距离Los Tuxtlas森林（生物保护区644公顷和3400公顷的毗连森林）从100米到1000米进入农业镶嵌区。第一阶段将测试种子雨和幼苗建立的先锋和后期演替物种从保护区作为一个功能的距离连续的森林或较小的遗迹，成熟的植被的年龄，和分散综合征（动物或风分散）种植的树木，因为他们成熟。 目标不是恢复热带森林生态系统;在可预见的未来，种植的混交林和现有残余物周围的土地将仍然是集中管理的农业景观。 最终的目标是测试的方法，增加和保持种植的立场和残余物之间的连接使用空气传播的种子传播剂，并在这样做找到增加和保持动物和花卉的多样性在一个永久性的农业镶嵌的手段。 这是一个雄心勃勃的科学建议，具有更广泛的影响，可能会使直接的科学目标相形见绌，通过培训，鼓励一个庞大而充满活力的本科生和研究生团体。 目标是鼓励和培训学生设计管理整个新热带地区农业马赛克的方法，应用和改进在热带农业经济现实中使用实验性恢复来保护和促进生物多样性的方法。

The proposed project will experimentally test the efficacy of seed dispersal by bats and birds as compared with seed dispersal by wind in overcoming dispersal limitation of tropical trees in an intensively altered agricultural mosaic of crops, pastures, and forest remnants in Veracruz, Mexico. Recently-developed criteria for selecting late-successional species that survive well in pasture environments will be used to plant 8 half hectare (ha) grids of late-successional wind-dispersed (9 species) and pioneer (3 species) trees and 8 similar grids of late-successional (9 species) and pioneer (3 species) animal-dispersed trees at distances from the Los Tuxtlas forest (Biological Reserve of 644 ha and contiguous forest of 3400 ha) from 100 to 1000 m into the agricultural mosaic. The initial phase will test predictions of seed rain and seedling establishment of pioneer and late-successional species from the reserve as a function of distance from the continuous forest or smaller remnants, age of maturing vegetation, and dispersal syndrome (animal- or wind-dispersed) of planted trees as they mature. The objective is not to restore a tropical forest ecosystem; the land surrounding planted mixed stands and existing remnants will remain intensively managed agricultural landscapes for the foreseeable future. The ultimate objective is to test means of increasing and maintaining connectance among planted stands and remnants using airborne agents of seed dispersal, and in so doing find means of increasing and maintaining faunal and floral diversity within a permanent agricultural mosaic. This is an ambitious scientific proposal with wider implications that may dwarf direct scientific objectives through the training, encouragement of a large and energized undergraduate and graduate student body. The goal will be to encourage and train students to devise ways of managing agricultural mosaics throughout the Neotropics, applying and refining methods that preserve and promote biodiversity using experimental restoration within the reality of tropical agrarian economies.