DYNAMICS OF DIAMETER DISTRIBUTION OF THREE TREE SPECIES IN AN AREA MANAGED IN THE TAPAJOS NATIONAL FOREST
Management of natural forests; Weibull function; Hymenaea courbaril; Goupia glabra; Caryocar glabrum.
Knowledge of the composition of tree species and the distribution of their individuals is essential to efficiently plan the management and conservation of native Amazonian flora. The analysis of the distribution of individuals in diameter classes is a tool that can be used to infer about the past and future of plant communities. This work used data from a continuous forest inventory, collected for 31 years in permanent plots, and data from two forest inventories at 100% intensity, in order to analyze the diameter distributions of the species Hymenaea courbaril L., Goupia glabra Aubl. and Caryocar glabrum (Aubl.) Pers., after timber extracting and applying silvicultural treatments. Diameter classes with an interval of 10 cm between them were established to analyze the diameter distributions of the numbers of individuals of the species. Weibull's probability density function of three parameters (3P) was used to project the diametric distribution, as it is one of the most popular distribution models in forestry studies. Data adherence to the Weibull 3P distribution was assessed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test. The Kruskal-Wallis test was also used to find the difference in DBH between the years studied. As a result, there was adherence of the values estimated by the Weibull 3P functions for the three analyzed species, that is, the expected and observed frequencies were statistically similar. It was found that, at 33 years after logging, the three species evaluated showed a diameter distribution tending to a negative exponential (J-reverse), demonstrating that the three species may participate in polycyclic forest management systems.