Grouping tree species of a tropical forest based on soil characteristics

Among the factors that regulate size and distribution of tree populations in many forest ecosystems of Amazonia, competition for soil nutrients can be mentioned as one of the most important, due to its scarcity in most of the soils of that region. The objective of this work was to group part of the arboreal species of the tropical forest based on soil characteristics. The data of 32 more abundant species of a primary forest of Amapa State, Eastern Amazonia, distributed in 240 subplots of 10x 10 m, located in 12 plots of 1 ha, randomly demarcated was used. According to cluster and canonical discriminate analysis, species were grouped into three clusters that represent ranges of chemical and textural variables of soil. The most important variables for contrasting of groups were Ca, Mg, K and Al. The species of Melastomataceae, concentrated their populations along conditions related to lower soil fertility. Results suggest that the substrate plays an important role on size and distribution of tree populations at the primary forest studied.