Regeneration of urban agroforestry systems: the importance of tree cover in forest transition

This study analyzed and described the composition, richness and diversity of species of the woody component in different forest strata of an abandoned agroforestry system (~ 3 ha), located in an urban Atlantic Forest area, in the city of Juiz de Fora (MG), Brazil. We started from the premise that the remaining tree stratum tends to improve the process of natural regeneration and forest succession. We randomly designated 25 plots of 20 x 20 m for the analysis of the tree layer, and subplots of 5 x 5 m for the analysis of regeneration stratum. We observed a community with strong dominance and a low Shannon diversity index (H') compared to secondary forest vegetation in the same region. The analysis demonstrated that the presence of large-sized individuals remaining after thinning the understory tends to assist and accelerate the process of natural regeneration and ecological succession