Conservation potential of shade-tolerant forest species in agricultural mosaics in the eastern Brazilian Amazon

ABSTRACT Shade-tolerant forest species are among the most susceptible to habitat loss in agricultural mosaics, where a variety of croplands is connected to forests at different levels of anthropogenic disturbance. We aimed to evaluate the community similarity of shade-tolerant species among different land use types across agricultural mosaics with different levels of disturbance. The study was conducted in three municipalities in southern and southeastern Pará state, in eastern Amazonia. A multiple-community similarity measure based on the Horn similarity index was used to compare land use types and assess the resilience of shade-tolerant species towards forest loss and disturbance at the landscape level. High shade-tolerant species similarity was found between mature forest fragments that underwent different levels of disturbance in all three agricultural mosaics, but secondary forests had lower similarity with mature forest in the most fragmented and altered mosaic. Shade-tolerant species showed very low density in croplands, but the same group of species seemed to colonize agricultural fields of annual crops and clean pasture, as they showed high community similarity. Another group of species was present in invaded pastures, probably due to the effects of time since land abandonment after woody species colonization. Mixed tree plantations were more similar to mature and secondary forests than other types of croplands. Shade-tolerant species similarity was higher among land use types inserted in agricultural landscapes that maintained conserved forest fragments. Our results suggest that the conservation of mature forests and landscape connectivity are crucial to the maintenance of shade-tolerant species in agricultural mosaics.