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Plant Composition and Structure of Two Post-Livestock Areas of Tamaulipan Thornscrub, Mexico Miguel A

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Plant Composition and Structure of Two Post-Livestock Areas of Tamaulipan Thornscrub, Mexico Miguel A Pequeño-Ledezma et al. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural (2018) 91:4 Revista Chilena de https://doi.org/10.1186/s40693-018-0074-9 Historia Natural RESEARCH Open Access Plant composition and structure of two post-livestock areas of Tamaulipan thornscrub, Mexico Miguel A. Pequeño-Ledezma1, Eduardo Alanís-Rodríguez2, Víctor M. Molina-Guerra3, Arturo Mora-Olivo4* , Alejandro G. Alcalá-Rojas5, José Guadalupe Martínez-Ávalos4 and Fortunato Garza-Ocañas2 Abstract Background: The composition, structure and biological diversity of two regenerated areas after livestock activities in a Tamaulipan thornscrub vegetation from Northeast Mexico were evaluated. The regeneration of each area was evaluated with the establishment of 12 sampling sites of 50m2. From the data obtained ecological indexes such as: Importance Value Index and Diversity (alpha and beta) were evaluated. Results: A total of 17 families, 40 genera and 42 species were registered, the most representative family was Fabaceae with 11 spp. The intensive livestock area had 36 species; a Margalef index of 4.44 and a 1.24 Shannon index, while the extensive livestock area had 32 species, a Margalef index of 4.24 and a 2.16 Shannon index. The communities evaluated have a (48%) mean similarity. Conclusions: 1) Regenerated communities after livestock use showed higher richness of species and alpha diversity. 2) Evaluated communities have a mean similarity of (48%). 3) Even after 25 years of regeneration the most dominant species was Cenchrus ciliaris that is used for cattle forage. Keywords: Diversity, Livestock, Mexican scrubs, Plant regeneration, Shannon index Background areas with natural vegetation) to a gradual shifting to an in- Livestock activity represents 5% of the global gross domes- tensive form (small areas in where natural vegetation is re- tic product (GDP), almost 29% of the terrestrial surface cor- placed by grassland). The change is causing severe damage responds to permanent grasslands or to systems of forage to natural plant communities, especially those in arid and cultivation used for feeding cattle [1]. In México livestock semi-arid areas as scrubs [4]. In fact, thornscubs are the activity stands for 56% of the national territory and some most extensive and historically, the most widely used vege- northern states are used for this particular purpose [2]. The tation type in the arid and semiarid zones of Mexico [5, 6]. state of Nuevo León has a livestock area of 86% from its This vegetation type has been affected by antropogenic ac- total surface (i.e. 5.5 million of hectares), from these 90% tivities for different uses and purposes [5, 7]. In the same are used for livestock and 10% are used for cultivating way, it has suffered continuous deforestation and land use grasslands with different species [2]. However, it is evident changes due to introduction of livestock [3, 8, 9]. that in conjunction with other human activities, livestock In the 1960 and 1980’s 3 million hectares were defor- farming has strongly influenced some natural ecosystems in ested to produce buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) in the this state and in other regions of the country [3]. states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas and by In general, the current demand for cattle has led to 1998 only 1 million hectares remained [10]. Thus, livestock changes on the traditional extensive production form (large areas are usually used only for some time and aban- doned when their productivity is lower. These areas do regenerate naturally but there is scarce information * Correspondence: [email protected] and knowledge about the resulting vegetation commu- 4Instituto de Ecología Aplicada, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, División del Golfo 356, 87019 Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Pequeño-Ledezma et al. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural (2018) 91:4 Page 2 of 8 nities [8, 11].Resultsofpreviousinvestigationsindi- (Fig. 1). This area is located at an altitude of 310 m. The cli- cated that the arboreal and shrub plant community of mate in the area is considered as dry BSOhw according to Tamaulipan thorny scrub regenerates after it has been Köppen as modified by García [16] for the Mexican Republic. abandoned and the intensity and time of the activity The mean annual temperature is 20° a 22 °C and the hottest influences the final result of plant composition after months are July and August whereas the lower temperatures regeneration [12, 13]. Due to the intense land use occur in December and January with 13 °C a 14 °C. change and the scarce researches done in this ecosys- Some of the species with the highest importance value tem, it is important to develop studies of vegetation index in the region are Leucophyllum frutescens (Cenizo), communities after disturbance due to different man- Cordia boissieri (Anacahuita) y Acacia amentácea (Gavia), agement practices, in order to provide documentary Prosopis glandulosa (Mezquite), Havardia pallens (Tenaza), bases to establish the direction of successional devel- Acacia farnesiana (Huizache), Parkinsonia texana (Palo opment in different vegetation communities [14, 15]. verde) and Celtis pallida (Granjeno) [6]. This study has the main objective of evaluate regenerated vegetation communities after livestock activity intensities (i.e. intensive and extensive livestock), at the Tamauilipan thorn- Floristic inventory scurb of Northeastern México. From the evaluation we ob- In order to accomplish the main objective of this study, tained ecological indicators such as 1) abundance, two vegetation communities with different historical live- dominance (canopy area), frequency and the importance stock uses were selected. The extensive livestock area (25° value index, 2) alpha diversity (specific richness, Margalef 43′25.46″,99°58′7.15″ and 18.58 ha), was influenced by and Shannon Indexes), 3) beta diversity. The hypothesis of decades of use with selective extraction of woody species this study is that the area used with intensive livestock will as well as for tramping and feeding activities of livestock. have lower values of coverage, density and species richness. In 1998 productive activities in this area were abandoned. In the area with a historical intensive livestock activity (25° 43′25.63″, 99°58′19.43″ and 28.66 ha), the secondary vege- Methods tation was eliminated and in 1977 an exotic grassland (Cen- Study area chrus ciliaris) was established and livestock were grassing This study was carried out in a Tamaulipan thornscrub there for 10 years (i.e. 1978–1988). In both areas, productive vegetation regenerated after livestock activities in Northeast- activities were abandoned and regeneration occurred ern Mexico in the municipality of Pesquería, Nuevo León naturally. Fig. 1 General location of study area. From left to right: Mexico, Nuevo León and the municipality of Pesquería. The study area is indicated with a star Pequeño-Ledezma et al. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural (2018) 91:4 Page 3 of 8 After twenty five years livestock activities (i.e. in 2013), the species i respect ot total dominance, FRi = relative the vegetation communities were evaluated in both frequency of the species i respect to total frequency. areas. In order to evaluate regeneration 12 sampling sites In order to determine alfa diversity two indexes were (i.e. 24 in total) in each area were established. Rectangular used, Margalef (DMg)[21] corresponding to the number sampling sites of 50 m2 (5 × 10 m) were used for facilitating of present species (richness of species) and that by Shannon the limits and measurements in dense vegetation when (H´) [22] corresponding to the community structure, i.e. compared with circular shaped sites [17]. the proportional distribution of the value given to each spe- Distribution of sampling sites was randomly selected cies. The following formulas were used for its calculation: and information of all trees, shrubs and herbaceous species was registered. Trees and shrubs with a basal ðÞS−1 DMg ¼ diameter of d0.10 > 1 cm, were evaluated as well as all 1nðÞN herbaceous species. XS 0 ¼ − Â ðÞ H pi 1n pi Data analysis i¼1 Abundance was determined for each species, considering ¼ ni the number of individuals, their dominance regarding pi N the function of the canopy coverage and its frequency based on its existence in sampling sites. Results were Where S = number of present species, N = number of used in order to obtain a balance value at the taxon level total individuals, ni=number of individuals per species i, named Importance Value Index (IVI), which has per- pi = proportion of individuals of species i with respect to centage values in a scale of 0–100 [18]. For relative the total number of individuals. abundance estimate the following equation was used: In order to determine variability of species composition . ! . between the sampling units, the beta diversity was used. Ai X Â ¼ N i Similarity of vegetation communities was calculated using ARi ¼ 100 Ai Ai S the Sorensen similarity coefficient used for quantitative i¼1…n data (IScuant) using the formula by Magurran [23]: Where Ai = absolute abundance, ARi = relative abun- dance of the species i respect to the total abundance, N ¼ 2pN i IScuant þ = number of individuals of the species i, S = sampling sur- aN bN face (ha). Relative dominance was evaluated by means of: . ! . Where aN = total number of individuals in the site A, Di X Â ¼ Abi bN = total number of individuals in the site B, pN = DRi ¼ 100 Di Di ShaðÞ Summary of the lower abundance of the shared species i¼1…n between both sites.
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