Survival and growth stakes of three species used to restore tree canopy in disturbed sites in Chiapas, Mexico

Tropical forest recovery in abandoned pastures may be slowed down or halted by a number of factors, many of which are caused or maintained by a lack of a tree canopy layer.  One option for regenerating forests under such conditions is to restitute the tree layer with species that can reestablish by vegetative means. A common agricultural practice in the Mesoamerican tropics is to construct living fences, a technology which might be used to restore tree cover for restoration purposes. In this study we evaluated survival and growth of the native tree species Bursera simaruba, Gliricidia sepium and Spondias mombin, commonly used for building living fences in Chiapas, Mexico.  After one year, individuals of G. sepium had the highest survival (53.3%), followed by B. simaruba (37.8%) and S. mombin (22.2 %).  G. sepium showed a three times faster growth rate (F=8.6; P=0.001), produced more and longer branches, and produced more leaves than the other two species.  G. sepium is also the species most frequently used to build living fences at our site.  We suggest that the use of stakes of G. sepium could be an unexpensive but effective restoration strategy to restore a tree canopies in this region of Mexico.