Monitoring forest dynamics and conservation: a new approach for explicit representation of spatio-temporal patterns.

Forests represent the most diverse and complex ecosystems hosting high levels of terrestrial biodiversity, providing needful ecosystem services for human well-being. As an important global attack is pressing this crucial patrimony with an alarming rate, we need an efficient and operative tool to monitor both their conservation and dynamic status. In fact, non-equilibrium ecological paradigm considers plant community as a complex dissipative system, which calls for a methodology with explicit representation of spatio-temporal patterns. The information theory models of Juhász-Nagy offer an appropriate tool for describing the relationship between diversity and multispecies spatial dependence in vegetation. We used information theory models for analyses which represent complex community patterns (beta diversity of species combinations and species associations) as a function of spatial resolution. We present some results obtained using this methodology with field data from different vegetation contexts and in particular from the forest of Białowieża National Park (Poland). In particular, we compared the herb layer spatial patterns of dynamically contiguous regeneration phases of the same phytocoenosis. Results show that assemblages of plant individuals are less diverse and more associated in primary than in regenerating stands, suggesting, in both situations, competitive dominance and disturbance as the main ecological mechanisms. Thus, the method was proven effective in distinguishing slightly different dynamical processes. We propose using this sampling design in future coordinated distributed surveys for studying non-equilibrium dynamics and assembly rules of forest vegetation in a more operative way and improving the predictability of vegetation processes.