XVI International Botanical Congess

We compared early plant succession in four abandoned pastures of differing age since abandonment and a nearby secondary forest site innorthwestern Ecuador. Two Open pastures had no tree canopy covering, and two Guava pastures had a well developed canopy cover of Psidium guajava. All pastures were compared chronosequentially and two of these pastures were monitored temporally for 30 months. Species richness was consistently higher in Guava sites than in Open sites and it continued to increase over ava sites appears headed towards secondary forest, whereas it does not in Open sites.