Field data on diversity and vegetation structure of natural regeneration in a chronosequence of abandoned gold-mining lands in a tropical Amazon forest.

Anthropogenic activities (e.g., logging, gold-mining, agriculture, and uncontrolled urban expansion) threaten the forests in the southeast of the Peruvian Amazon, one of the most diverse ecosystems worldwide.

Changes in floristic and vegetation structure in a chronosequence of abandoned gold-mining lands in a tropical Amazon forest.

This study analyzes floristic and vegetation structure changes during forest succession after disturbances caused by small-scale gold mining in Madre de Dios (Peru). We compared the floristic and vegetation structure of a reference forest against three sites with different periods of abandonment after mining (5, 11 and 23-years). Three 20 × 60 m plots were defined on each site, and all tree species with a DBH >1 cm within the plots were inventoried.