Forest gaps: a blessing in disguise? A review on gap dynamics, human interpolations and interventions

This review paper aims to highlight the variance between forest gap characteristics and gap-phase regeneration in natural and anthoropgenic-induced forest gaps. It also evaluates whether or not deforestation on natural tropical forest provides an opportunity for generating viable flora composition that would have better adaptability to the continually changing environment. By comparing the difference and a range of other aspects of the two disturbance regimes, it is evident that anthropogenic disturbances may pose an opportunity for good results in the gap-phase regeneration process, provided the extent and severity of induced disturbances mimic natural gap systems in term of damages initiated and size.Numerous literature have been able to differentiate and to some extent quantify the above terms and associate them discretely with the two disturbance regimes, but also considering that there is some overlaps in characteristics between them. It has been concluded in the review that natural gaps stand a better chance of recovering than anthropogenically induced gaps. However, the latter can do equally well if assisted by human ingenuity, but this is yet to be the case in a global sense