Regenerating forests around Taï National Park sustain biodiversity despite constrained floristic recovery
4 affiliations
- 1Université Jean Lorougnon Guédé, Unité de Formation et de Recherche en Environnement, Daloa, Côte d' Ivoire.
- 2Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves, Soubré, Côte d' Ivoire.
- 3CIRAD, Forêts et Sociétés, Montpellier, France.
- 4Forêts et Sociétés, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, Montpellier, France.
Abstract
Extensive deforestation and disturbance have reshaped forest landscapes in West Africa, including areas surrounding Taï National Park, the largest remaining block of Upper Guinean rainforest. Although many degraded areas are currently undergoing regeneration, the capacity of these secondary forests to recover their biodiversity attributes remains insufficiently assessed within this park. This study quantifies the multidimensional restoration of biodiversity across 125 secondary forest plots and 15 primary forest plots representing 14,731 inventoried individuals in four sectors of the park. Using a Bayesian modelling framework, we estimate recovery trajectories of Shannon diversity, floristic composition, functional traits (wood density, leaf mass per area, seed mass), and conservation-relevant species. The different biodiversity attributes recovered at contrasting rates. Diversity was restored more rapidly (λ = 0.06) than floristic composition (λ = 0.03), and these recovery rates varied according to environmental variables. Among these, the presence of remnant trees showed the highest median on diversity (0.53 ± 0.61) and floristic composition (0.37 ± 0.17), promoting the rapid recovery of both attributes, followed by prior land use, particularly cocoa farming which also positively influenced the recovery of alpha diversity (λ = 0.03) and floristic composition (λ = 0.02). Regarding functional traits, they displayed contrasting dynamics: leaf mass per area (LMA) and seed mass recovered rapidly along successional gradients, whereas wood density followed a more gradual recovery trajectory. From a conservation perspective, although the proportion of IUCN Red List species remained stable along the successional gradient, old-growth indicator species were significantly more abundant in primary forests. To ensure the long-term conservation of biodiversity, protecting both primary and regenerating forests is essential to preserve the ecological resilience of this park.
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BibTeX
@article{houphouet2026regenerating,
title = {{Regenerating forests around Taï National Park sustain biodiversity despite constrained floristic recovery}},
author = {Aya Diane Larissa Houphouët and Yao Charles Sangne and Abdoulaye Diarrassouba and Evans Ehouman and Bruno Hérault},
journal = {PLOS One},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0356900},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0356900},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Regenerating forests around Taï National Park sustain biodiversity despite constrained floristic recovery
AU - Aya Diane Larissa Houphouët
AU - Yao Charles Sangne
AU - Abdoulaye Diarrassouba
AU - Evans Ehouman
AU - Bruno Hérault
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - PLOS One
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0356900
UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0356900
AB - Extensive deforestation and disturbance have reshaped forest landscapes in West Africa, including areas surrounding Taï National Park, the largest remaining block of Upper Guinean rainforest. Although many degraded areas are currently undergoing regeneration, the capacity of these secondary forests to recover their biodiversity attributes remains insufficiently assessed within this park. This study quantifies the multidimensional restoration of biodiversity across 125 secondary forest plots and 15 primary forest plots representing 14,731 inventoried individuals in four sectors of the park. Using a Bayesian modelling framework, we estimate recovery trajectories of Shannon diversity, floristic composition, functional traits (wood density, leaf mass per area, seed mass), and conservation-relevant species. The different biodiversity attributes recovered at contrasting rates. Diversity was restored more rapidly (λ = 0.06) than floristic composition (λ = 0.03), and these recovery rates varied according to environmental variables. Among these, the presence of remnant trees showed the highest median on diversity (0.53 ± 0.61) and floristic composition (0.37 ± 0.17), promoting the rapid recovery of both attributes, followed by prior land use, particularly cocoa farming which also positively influenced the recovery of alpha diversity (λ = 0.03) and floristic composition (λ = 0.02). Regarding functional traits, they displayed contrasting dynamics: leaf mass per area (LMA) and seed mass recovered rapidly along successional gradients, whereas wood density followed a more gradual recovery trajectory. From a conservation perspective, although the proportion of IUCN Red List species remained stable along the successional gradient, old-growth indicator species were significantly more abundant in primary forests. To ensure the long-term conservation of biodiversity, protecting both primary and regenerating forests is essential to preserve the ecological resilience of this park.
SN - 1932-6203
ER -