SARI BUMI KUSUMA

Widiyatno¹?³?*, Budiadi¹, P Suryanto¹, YDBM Rinarno¹, SD Prianto¹, Y Hendro², T Hosaka³& S Numata³

¹Faculty of Forestry, Gadjah Mada University, Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia

²PT Sari Bumi Kusuma, Camp Nanga Nuak, Melawi, West Kalimantan, 79682, Indonesia

³Faculty of Urban Environmental Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Minami-Ohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397 Japan

* This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted November 2015; accepted January 2016

Recovery of vegetation and soil nutrients in abandoned shifting cultivation areas can provide important information, important for forest rehabilitation. For better understanding of forest recovery afterthe cessation of shifting cultivation, soil nutrients and vegetation structure of fallow areas were monitored at 1, 5 and 10 years after abandonment in a primary forest plot. The results showed that the number of species, the Shannon indices of diversity and evenness of large trees (diameter at breast height > 20 cm) increased with time after abandonment. Late-successional species in primary tropical rainforests, e.g. Shorea sp., was found 1, 5 and 10 years after abandonment. Soil organic carbon and total nitrogen levels were low in all plots and at all soil depths except in surface soil (0–2 cm), and did not significantly differ between among plots. Available phosphorous content was significantly different between the plot that had been fallow for one year and the rest of the plots, for both combined and each soil depth. It was concluded that changes in vegetation composition did not affect the status of soil nutrients in the young fallow plots, which can support the growth of late-succession species.

Keywords: Forest recovery, pioneer species, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, phosphorous

Journal of Tropical Forest Science 29(2): 151–162 (2017) Widiyatno et al.