Assessment of the ecological resilience of tropical dry forests: a multiscalar approach

Ecological resilience includes two components: resistance and recovery. In areas of tropical dry forest (TDF) where the vegetation is removed to establish croplands, the resistance of the vegetation to this anthropic disturbance becomes irrelevant. However, once croplands are abandoned, the sites start a process of recovery of their ecological attributes. The aim of this work is to present a methodological framework for the assessment of the ecological resilience of the TDF through a sequential combination of remote sensing and field surveys, considering the conceptual framework of resilience and the ecology of the TDF. The assessment of the ecological resilience of the TDF is proposed to include the following approaches: (1) an analysis of the recovery of the TDF attributes (e. g., coverage, height) at the regional and landscape levels through remote sensing (e. g., satellite images) that show land-use and land cover change; (2) assess recovery from a local perspective through the analysis of the most relevant ecological variables such as structure, diversity, and ecological function of vegetation, and (3) from the inputs at the local level, to return to the less detailed levels of work (e. g., regional and landscape) and to model the data obtained in the field through vegetation indices. This approach would allow assessing the ecological resilience of an ecosystem and the causes that promote it at different spatial scales.