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

Abstract

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. However, gold-mining generates the most severe impacts on ecosystems and limits its resilience. The natural regeneration of degraded areas in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon have not been studied deeply. The dataset contains floristic inventories of previously uncharacterized or poorly studied secondary forests degraded and abandoned by goldmining activities and an intact forest in the Tres Islas indigenous community, Madre de Dios region, in southeastern Peru. The data presented was obtained from 12 plots (20 m × 60 m) established in three successional forests abandoned by gold mining and an intact forest (without mining impacts), where all trees with a stem diameter at breast height greater than 1 cm were inventoried. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only dataset in the southwest of the Peruvian Amazon that compares the natural colonization after gold-mining and intact forests. This dataset can be useful for long-term study and monitoring of structure and tree diversity in relatively understudied yet important secondary forests after gold-mining abandonment. Also, this dataset could be used to analyze the successional trajectory process of vegetation and the recovery of aboveground biomass. Furthermore, the data could be used to investigate the effects of functional traits and types of mining on vegetation recovery. Hence, understanding the successional processes will help to improve restoration, reforestation, or reclamation strategies for the recovery of degraded lands in the Amazon.