ABSTRACT
Although commercial forest plantations have been termed “green deserts”, several studies from the last two decades have reported the opposite. These studies suggest that forest plantations can catalyze the natural regeneration in their understory and, thus, contribute to biodiversity conservation. In order to obtain a wide and multi-faceted panorama of forest plantations and their potential contribution to biodiversity conservation and forest restoration, previous studies investigating natural regeneration under forest plantations have been reviewed, highlighting those carried out in Brazil. Methods and environmental conditions are quite variable among studies, making generalizations difficult. Nevertheless, results indicate that historical and environmental factors, such as canopy density and light availability, plantation age, forest species, distance from natural forests, silvicultural practices, and previous land use directly or indirectly affect natural regeneration richness, abundance and community structure under forest plantations. The reviewed studies, as a whole, reinforce the idea that commercial forest plantations can act as environments of biodiversity, at least for some life forms, and, in addition, can facilitate the restoration of native forests. Although the Brazilian studies are abundant, they have been restricted to a few regions and biomes and are mostly descriptive studies. Experimental studies focusing on specific factors that affect the natural regeneration dynamic under forest plantations as well as on management techniques in order to combine high production and biodiversity conservation are desirable. Nonetheless, other biomes and regions rather than those already studied, where forest plantation is a common land use, should be considered.
Keywords:
forest plantations; natural regeneration; ecological restoration; biodiversity conservation