In order to understand the resilience capacity of ecosystems it is necessary to understand how anthropogenic perturbations influence the loss of plant and functional diversity. The objective of this research was to determine the effect of the intensity of anthropogenic disturbance in these community attributes, particularly in reproductive traits, which determine the processes of pollination and dispersal, in the Abies religiosa forest in the Magdalena river basin, Mexico City. During 2017 we randomly selected 15 plots (25m x 25m), where we determined the intensity of three disturbance agents (cattle, other human activities and anthropogenic habitat deterioration) as well as the global disturbance index (DI), through a quantitative index. In the rainy and dry seasons, we characterized the environmental conditions and we determined the plant diversity and functional diversity (FD), through the structure, composition and reproductive traits of vegetation. We built a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) as well as a Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA).
Results/Conclusions
The GAM model showed a negative and significant relation between the increase of anthropogenic disturbance (DI) with plant diversity and with FD (P<0.005), the relation was more negative between anthropogenic disturbance (DI) with FD (adj.R2 = -0.32) in comparison with plant diversity (adj.R2 = -0.29). The CCA, determined a significant and negative relationship between plant diversity and DFCR with the cattle index (P<0.005), and a positive relation between FD with soil moisture (P<0.005). This is why the increase in anthropogenic disturbances can increase a loss in plant and functional diversity, being cattle the main agent that affects FD, and therefore it could affect processes of pollination and dispersal. Nevertheless, soil moisture could be a component that helps maintain FD even in anthropogenic disturbance conditions.