Much work has been done that documents the tremendous lost of biodiversity when tropical rain forests are converted to crop lands. However, little is known what happens when the agricultural land is abandoned and the rain forest begins its recuperation. The abandonment of crop lands in the tropical rain forest have always been practiced since Homo sapiens have been in that area and many ecologists believe that this historical disturbance regime in the tropical rain forests may explain the high diversity that is present in this system. However, what are the impacts of modern day agricultural practices? This project will examine that question and also ask if the type of agricultural practice determines how long it takes these forests to recover. More specifically it will examine the post-agricultural successional process in four agroecosystem types: 1) traditional agroforestry 2) migratory slash-burn, 3) cattle pasture and 4) modern intensive agriculture. The study will be conducted in the Peten of Guatemala and the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. This research will use the diverse forms of extant agricultural to discern the details of how type of disturbance affects the successional processes that lead to particular patterns of biodiversity. It may not be the fact of agriculture that is important, but what type of agriculture. The results will have practical importance in areas of Neotropical rainforests, where agriculture is so frequently abandoned and restoration ecology is now just beginning. The results from this research may give restorationists in the neotropic rain forest the knowledge and tools to sensibly intervene in the restoration process.
