Mining Disturbance Is Associated with Differences in Medicinal Tree Diversity, Community Structure, and Biomass Carbon Stocks in the Peruvian Amazon

Nieto Ramos C.E.; Nieto Ramos L.A.; Ruiz-Blandon B.A.; Dueñas Linares H.H.; Bernaola-Paucar R.M.; Sánchez-Lucio R.; Baez Quispe S.M.; Mantari Mallqui J.L.; Carrasco Nuñez Y.M.; Almanza Huamán L.M.; Zevallos-Guadalupe V.; Paucara Charca R. · Diversity (2026) · DOI: 10.3390/d18090506

Resumen

Alluvial gold mining can alter Amazonian tree communities, but its association with medicinal tree diversity, structure, and carbon stocks remains poorly documented. We compared four 1-ha forest plots in Boca Colorado, Madre de Dios, Peru: two with greater evidence of mining intervention and two less-impacted plots. All medicinal trees with DBH ≥ 10 cm were inventoried, and taxon richness, Hill diversity, rarefaction, floristic dissimilarity, dominance, structural attributes, and biomass carbon were evaluated. A total of 1344 individuals representing 203 taxa were recorded. Mean plot-level richness was higher in less-impacted forests than in impacted forests (135.5 vs. 95.5 taxa), as were diversity of orders q = 1 (79.9 vs. 48.1) and q = 2 (38.7 vs. 23.6). Richness therefore showed a scale-dependent pattern: less-impacted plots were richer individually, whereas impacted forests accumulated more taxa when plots were pooled (172 vs. 143), reflecting greater among-plot differentiation. Turnover accounted for 79.5% of Jaccard dissimilarity. Less-impacted forests also had 16.1% higher stem density and 47.1% higher total biomass carbon, with the carbon contrast supported by the hierarchical bootstrap analysis (p = 0.043). These findings indicate that mining intervention was associated with differences in abundance distribution, floristic composition, forest structure, and carbon stocks that were not captured by pooled richness alone.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de Huancavelica; Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre de Dios; Universidad Tecnológica del Perú; Universidad Andina del Cusco; Universidad Nacional Autónoma Altoandina de Tarma