Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina. Facultad de Ciencias Forestales. Departamento Académico de Industrias Forestales

Context: Gold mining is the most destructive activity in the natural forests of the Madre de Dios region in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon. Understanding the natural regeneration process of these degraded areas is necessary to develop forest restoration projects in such conditions. Aims: We aimed to evaluate forest recovery and identify the successional and structure patterns of vegetation governing natural regeneration over time. Methods: Structure, composition, richness, diversity, and successional status were evaluated in abandoned artisanal gold mine areas in Madre de Dios, southeastern Peru. Vegetation data were recorded in 61 plots of 250 m2 established in five sites varying from 1 to 19 years of abandonment. Vegetation in abandoned areas was compared with six undisturbed forests evaluated in previous inventories. Results: In the mining lands, tree density and basal area recovere...

1. Woody biomass in tropical trees contributes significantly to global carbon stocks; however, these stocks are increasingly affected by climate and land-use changes. Understanding the growth mechanisms driving woody biomass production is essential for assessing the short- and long-term contributions to carbon stocks and dynamics in tropical forests. 2. Trees accumulate biomass by increasing their size (wood volume) and/or tissue density (wood density). However, estimates of tree biomass production are often based solely on size increment through measurements of stem diameter growth, overlooking the potential spatial and temporal variation in wood density within trees. Tree-ring analysis can be applied to reconstruct past tree volume-growth and wood-density variations, allowing the quantification of their relative contributions when reconstructing past woody biomass production. 3. Here, ...