Assessing the impact of land use change on different components of plant diversity in a tropical montane cloud forest of Mexico

Worldwide, land use change is largely promoting intense biodiversity loss in many ecosystems, and Mexico is no exception to this. The information on how such changes have affected community structure, composition, and different components of plant biodiversity in Mexican tropical montane forests is scarce. This study aimed to assess how land use changes have affected: ecological diversity, taxonomic distinctness, and functional diversity, in Mexican montane cloud forests. We measured species composition and abundance in 10 × 10 m plots placed in different land use/land cover types, with increasing disturbance levels: preserved forest, regeneration forest, transition forest, coffee plantation, and pastureland. We quantified plant ecological diversity through Hill’s true diversity values, taxonomic diversity with the taxonomic distinctness index, and functional diversity through functional richness and Rao’s functional diversity index. We found that species composition varied with land use change. Furthermore, ecological diversity, taxonomic distinctness and functional diversity were lower in the disturbed sites (coffee plantations and pastureland) than in the more conserved forests. Soil type, rockiness, elevation, and disturbance intensity were major factors influencing plant communities’ different dimensions of diversity. Analyzing different components of biodiversity was a useful approach to understand current and possible future responses of tropical montane forests to changes in land use. Our results highlight the relevance of conserving and restoring these forests. Long-term conservation actions would need stopping intensive and extensive logging, reducing forest transformation, and promoting habitat heterogeneity that hosts different levels of diversity.