draft - university of toronto t-spacedraft 1 fragmentation dynamics in an abies religiosa forest of...

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Fragmentation dynamics in an Abies religiosa forest of central Mexico

Journal: Canadian Journal of Forest Research

Manuscript ID cjfr-2019-0235.R3

Manuscript Type: Article

Date Submitted by the Author: 27-Dec-2019

Complete List of Authors: Montoya Pérez, Laura; Colegio de Postgraduados, BotánicaGuzmán-Plazola, Remigio; Colegio de Postgraduados, Plant Health-Phytopathology Program; López-Mata, Lauro; Colegio de Postgraduados, Botanica

Keyword: Abies religiosa, habitat fragmentation, supervised classification, SPOT, forest openings

Is the invited manuscript for consideration in a Special

Issue? :Not applicable (regular submission)

https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjfr-pubs

Canadian Journal of Forest Research

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1 Fragmentation dynamics in an Abies religiosa forest of central Mexico

2

3 Montoya, E. 1

4 Guzmán-Plazola, R.A.2

5 López-Mata, L. 1

6

7 1 Botany Program, Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Montecillo, 56230, Montecillo,

8 Texcoco, State of Mexico, Mexico

9 2 Plant Health-Phytopathology Program, Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Montecillo,

10 56230, Montecillo, Texcoco, State of Mexico, Mexico

11

12 Correspondence:

13 Remigio Anastacio Guzmán-Plazola, Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Montecillo,

14 56230, Montecillo, Texcoco, State of Mexico, Mexico

15 Email: [email protected]

16

17 Summary

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18

19 Abies forests of Mexico are relicts of the boreal forests that advanced southwards during

20 glaciation periods. Mexico is a center of diversification of the Abies genus, since in its

21 territory there are eight species, and six of them are endemic. The Abies religiosa forests

22 nearby Mexico City are subject to a process of deterioration. We analyze the fragmentation

23 dynamics of the A. religiosa forest in the northern region of the Sierra Nevada, México. Land

24 cover change detection was done by means of high-resolution images acquired by the

25 SPOT satellite in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018. Habitat fragmentation was observed, with a

26 decrease in dense Abies masses size. The area covered by Abies decreased by 22.9%.

27 The area occupied by forest openings increased 3% from 2005 to 2010 and then decreased

28 by 1.8 and 1.6% in the following periods. Other Forest Cover increased in frequency and

29 size, which warns of a change process towards that patch type, which increased 23.3%. The

30 formation of increasingly smaller and isolated remnants of A. religiosa forest in the Sierra

31 Nevada can lead to the loss of this vegetation relict and its replacement by other types of cover

32 in the short term.

33

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34 Key words: Abies religiosa, forest openings, habitat fragmentation, supervised

35 classification, SPOT.

36

37 Introduction

38

39 Abies forests of Mexico are extensive boreal forest relicts that advanced southwards during

40 glaciation periods, when cold climates descended to tropical latitudes (Rzedowski and

41 McVaugh, 1966). They are located in mountains with altitudes between 2,400 and 3,500 m

42 a.s.l. (Rzedowski, 1998). Flores et al. (1971) estimated that they occupied 0.16% of the

43 surface of Mexico, however, their area of occurrence has been declining since the end of the

44 20th century.

45

46 In the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Ferrusquía-Villafranca, 1993) region, known as Sierra

47 Nevada, there are areas covered by Abies religiosa (Kunth Schltdl. et Cham.) that are part of the

48 Protected Natural Area (PNA) Izta-Popo-Zoquiapan National Park. It is located adjacent to the

49 Valley of Mexico (one of the largest and most populated metropolises in the world), so the

50 pressure on these forests is very noticeable. It is a landscape composed of forest patches of

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51 various sizes, composition, structure and stages of development, shaped by anthropogenic and

52 natural disturbances. The most important disturbances in these areas are deforestation, land

53 openings for agriculture, grazing, fires and selective extraction of timber (Manzanilla, 1974;

54 Velázquez, 1994; Challenger, 1998) and increased habitat vulnerability to stresses such as air

55 pollution, pests and diseases (Fenn et al., 2002; Alvarado and Hernández, 2002). These

56 disturbances exert a strong influence on the Abies forest landscape and may contribute to

57 habitat losses, increased fragmentation and biodiversity loss by leading to a feedback loop of

58 fragmentation dynamics that facilitates access to forest habitats and hence to further

59 disturbances (Broadbent, 2008). Habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity by 13-75% and

60 impairs the key functions of the ecosystem by decreasing biomass and altering nutrient cycles

61 (Ruete, 2016). It involves reduction in patch size, greater isolation of the patches and, often,

62 changes in habitat quality (Berg, 1997). There is also growing evidence that they can lead to

63 indirect chain effects (Komonen et al., 2000) like genetic changes associated with isolation

64 and population size reduction (Geburek and Myking, 2018), formation of critical areas of

65 geomorphic activity, driven by human activity, natural disturbances and the hydrological

66 regime (Pawlik et al., 2019).

67

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68 Precise identification of forest openings is essential for forest ecosystems characterization

69 (Chianucci et al., 2016) as they represent an important landscape fraction (Drössler and Lüpke,

70 2005). Remote sensing techniques provide a unique way for obtaining estimates on extense areas,

71 but their application is limited by the spectral, spatial and temporal resolution (Senécal et al., 2018;

72 Zhirin et al., 2019) available from these systems, which is often not adequate to meet regional or

73 local objectives. From high-resolution images it is possible to more precisely quantify changes in

74 coverage and even the occurrence of small openings.

75

76 The analysis of the variations in forest coverage provides key information to achieve an adequate

77 understanding of the fragmentation dynamics of the A. religiosa forests in Mexico. In this study,

78 results of the analysis of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the different types of land cover in

79 the Abies religiosa forest of the Izta-Popo-Zoquiapan National Park are reported. Our report is

80 based on the supervised classification of high spatial resolution images acquired by the SPOT

81 satellite in the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018, in order to document the effect of anthropogenic

82 pressure on the Abies forest ecosystem over a 13 year period.

83

84

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85 Materials and methods

86

87 This work was carried out in the A. religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada physiographic

88 region, which is part of the Izta-Popo-Zoquiapan National Park PNA. This type of vegetation

89 develops between 3,100 and 3,500 m a.s.l., mainly on slopes greater than 40% (Sánchez-

90 González and López-Mata, 2003). This forest is located between the coordinates 19° 26'

91 42.36" and 19° 28' 20.09" N and 98° 44' 59.74" and 98° 46' 42.78" W. It has an annual

92 average temperature that varies between 10 and 12º C and an annual rainfall of 900 to 1000

93 mm (Flores et al., 2011).

94

95 The presence of the A. religiosa forest was verified in one of the polygons reported by the

96 National Institute of Statistics Geography and Informatics (INEGI) on the map "Uso de Suelo

97 y Vegetación", scale 1: 250,000. This polygon belongs to the Ejidos Unidos de la Montaña

98 section and was selected as the study area because it is the most compact and

99 representative area of the forest under study (Figure 1). Additionally, from supervised

100 classification results and from field observations, the limits of the base polygon were

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101 modified to build a study polygon. This resulting polygon has a total area of 1,788.8 ha

102 (Figure 1).

103

104 Figure 1. Polygon of the Abies religiosa forest in the Sierra Nevada, State of Mexico (INEGI,

105 2017) and polygon modified by the authors from the supervised classification of a SPOT

106 scene of 2018.

107

108 Spatial analysis

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109 Images from the Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) acquired in the years 2005,

110 2010, 2015 and 2018 were used; all of them correspond to the dry season (December-

111 March) and had no cloud obstruction over the study area. They were taken with an angle

112 outside the nadir of 25.7° (Table 1). SPOT 5 and 6 generates a panchromatic image with a

113 spatial resolution of 2.5 m and four images with a spatial resolution of 10 m. SPOT 7

114 generates a panchromatic image with a spatial resolution of 1.5 m and four images with a

115 spatial resolution of 6 m. The SPOT images were acquired by the reception station in Mexico

116 (ERMEX). The images had a 3A processing level. This level includes orthorectification and

117 the radiometric correction of errors originated from the differences in sensitivity between

118 sensor elements, as well as geometric corrections.

119

Table 1. Satellite images used for analyzing coverage dynamics in the Abies

religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, State of Mexico, Mexico.

Year Date Satellite Type* K/J

2005 December 25th SPOT 5 P 589/311

2005 December 25th SPOT 5 M 589/311

2010 March 28th SPOT 5 P 589/311

2010 March 28th SPOT 5 M 589/311

2015 January 28th SPOT 6 P 589/311

2015 January 28th SPOT 6 M 589/311

2015 February 10th SPOT 7 P 589/312

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2015 February 10th SPOT 7 M 589/312

2018 March 4th SPOT 7 P 589/312

2018 March 4th SPOT 7 M 589/312

*P= Panchromatic; M= Multiespectral

120

121 Image Fusion

122 The IHS algorithm was implemented in the System for Automated Geoscientific Analyzes

123 (SAGA) version 2.0.6. It uses the high-resolution panchromatic band (e.g. December 25th

124 image, Type P, Table 1) and the low-resolution images (e.g. December 25 image, Type M,

125 Table 1) to create multispectral images of panchromatic resolution. This algorithm was

126 based on the resampling of the image from which it allows to match raster data layers that

127 have different cell sizes before overlaying them. The nearest neighbor method was used as

128 a resampling method to determine what data value should be assigned to the new cell. This

129 method assigns to the new cell the value of its closest neighbor cell in the original data layer

130 (Johnston, 1998). The spatial information of the panchromatic image (1.5 or 2.5 m spatial

131 resolution) was added to the visual information of the multispectral image (6 or 10 m spatial

132 resolution). Spectral characteristics of the original data were preserved in the resulting high-

133 resolution image. A detailed description of the IHS fusion technique is given in Zhang and

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134 Hong (2005). After the fusion process, the images of the years 2005 and 2010, with a spatial

135 resolution of 2.5 m, were resampled to a resolution of 1.5 m to make them spatially

136 comparable with those of 2015 and 2018. The resampling was carried out using the

137 RESAMPLE module of Idrisi v. Terrset (Eastman, 2016).

138

139 Geometric transformation

140 To carry out the corregistration of the SPOT images, four ground control points (GCP) were

141 identified in the area that covers the scene. These points were accurately located in all

142 images (Jensen, 1996). A first-degree polynomial and the nearest neighbor resampling

143 method were applied, using the RESAMPLE command of the IDRISI software v. Terrset.

144 The software calculates the mathematical corrections necessary to perform the

145 corregistration and calculates the output pixel position from the ground control points (GCP).

146 These corrections are evaluated as mean square error (pixel fraction), which refers to the

147 distance between the input location (source) of a GCP and the transformed location for the

148 same GCP.

149

150 Supervised classification

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151 Three land patch types were defined by field observations: 1) Abies religiosa, 2) Forest

152 openings, and 3) Other Forest Cover (Figure 2). The coordinates of the field observation

153 sites served as the basis for the digitization of the training sites corresponding to each patch

154 type. By means of the QGIS software v. 2.18 (QGIS, 2018), a vector file of the training areas

155 was generated to classify the fused multispectral images. Seventy percent of these polygons

156 were randomly chosen as input of the maximum likelihood classification algorithm

157 (Chuvieco, 1996). This procedure was carried out for each study year. The separability of

158 patch types was analyzed (Franklin, 2018).

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161 letters in the upper left image corresponds to the location of the photographs taken during

162 field trips in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. The upper left image

163 has coordinates UTM 14N, Datum WGS84. A = forest openings formed by Abies religiosa

164 cuttings; B = forest openings induced from the creation of a path; C = closed canopy in the

165 Abies forest; D = forest openings corresponding to Pinus reforestation; E and F = area with

166 Other Forest Cover, mainly Arbutus, Cupressus, Pinus and Quercus.

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167

168 Accuracy of classification results

169 The accuracy of the classification was statistically evaluated from a confusion matrix

170 generated from the input data and the supervised classification results. This analysis was

171 carried out using SAGA software v. 2.18. The remaining 30% of the polygons from field

172 observations were used as ground truth. Additionally, the Kappa index (Landis and Koch,

173 1977), the global accuracy and the average reliability (Stehman, 1997) were calculated for

174 each of the patch types used in the classification.

175

176 Temporal analysis

177 A series of images taken by the SPOT satellite in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018, corresponding

178 to the same study area were used. Each of these images was used in a classification

179 process based on the aforementioned thematic classes.

180

181 Change detection

182 By means of the CROSSTAB command of IDRISI v. Terrset, pixel based changes in the

183 cover of the Abies forest occurring in the periods 2005-2010, 2010-2015 and 2015-2018

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184 were estimated. Based on these results, a flow chart was made which indicates direction

185 and magnitude of each change through the three periods considered.

186

187 Results

188

189 Image fusion

190 Four multispectral images with 1.5 m spatial resolution corresponding to the years 2005,

191 2010, 2015 and 2018 were generated. An example of the sharpness achieved by this

192 process is shown in the upper left corner of Figure 2. In this case a false color image is

193 shown, product of the mixture of the blue, green and red bands derived from the fusion

194 process. The results of the corregistration of the previous images with the 2018 scene had

195 a square mean error of 0.004, 0.009 and 0.007 pixel fraction for the years 2005, 2010 and

196 2015, respectively.

197

198 Supervised classification

199 In general, the Forest Openings class has the highest reflectance values, while the Abies

200 and Other Forest Cover classes had more similar patterns to each other, but their standard

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201 deviations did not overlap in most bands (Figure A in supplementary material). In the SPOT

202 scene corresponding to the year 2005, it is observed that the mean reflectance values and

203 standard deviations of the patch types for the blue (B), red (R) and infrared (IR) bands are

204 separable, which allowed a percentage of correct classification of 98% (Figure A and Table

205 A in supplementary material). The reflectance patterns in the green (G) and IR bands of the

206 2010 scene show no overlap in their mean reflectance values and standard deviations for

207 each patch type; this allowed a percentage of correct classification of 95% (Figure A and

208 Table A in supplementary material). The 2015 image presents average reflectance values

209 and standard deviations of the B and IR bands that are different for each patch type, which

210 allowed 80% correct classification in this period (Table A in supplementary material). In

211 2018, mean values and standard deviations of reflectance do not overlap, except for the red

212 band; this allowed percentages of correct global classification of 89% (Figure A and Table

213 A in supplementary material). Four images classified into the three patch types were

214 obtained (Figure 3). Kappa values for the different patch types are indicated in Table A of

215 supplementary material.

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216

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217 Figure 3. Results of the supervised classification of the SPOT images of the years 2005

218 (December), 2010 (March), 2015 (February) and 2018 (March) in the area of the A. religiosa

219 forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

220

221 Temporal dynamics

222 The increase in the number of A. religiosa fragments followed a linear trend between 2005

223 (1,249 patches) (Figures 4a and 5) and 2015 (19,552 patches) (Figure 4c), but this trend did

224 not continue towards 2018, when the graph acquired an inverted “J” shape, in which

225 increasingly smaller patches dominated, with very few large patches. At the end of the period

226 under analysis, the densest mass of this forest was reduced from 87.1 to 58.3% of total

227 surface (Figures 4d and 5) (21,653 patches) (Figure 5). The increase in the number of Other

228 Forest Cover patches followed a quasi-exponential trend during the whole period under

229 study (Figure 5), where the number of fragments increased from 15,816 in 2005 to 36,116

230 in 2018. The formation of forest clearings had a similar trend to that of Other Forest Cover

231 between 2005 and 2015, but its trend declined towards 2018, at a greater extent than the

232 number of fragments of A. religiosa.

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233234 Figure 4. Patch size structure of the different cover classes in the Abies religiosa forest of

235 the Sierra Nevada, Mexico, during the period from December 2005 to March 2018. Green

236 bars = Abies religiosa. Grey bars = Forest openings. Red bars = Other Forest Cover. Vertical

237 lines below the bars indicate the existence of data for patches with the Ln(area) indicated.

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238

239 Figure 5. Patch frequency of different types of land coverage from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies

240 religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

241

242 The analysis of the transitions between the different patch types over time indicates that in

243 2005 the A. religiosa class covered 1,564.4 ha (87.5% 2.1) of the study area. In 2010 a

244 total of 1,281.6 ha (71.7% 2.4) of this patch type was detected. In 2015, a decrease to

245 1,151.6 ha (64.4% 10.7) was observed. In 2018, the Abies forest represented a coverage

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246 of 1,154.3 ha (64.5% 6.5). The sources of changes for all patch types are reported in

247 Figures 6 and 7.

248249 Figure 6. Dynamics of land coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest

250 in the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. * Data in each cell indicate estimated surface in hectares.

251

252 The area with forest openings (including some crop fields) covered 101.5 ha (5.7% 0.1) of

253 the study area in 2005. In 2010 an increase to 155 ha (8.7% 0.1) was detected. In 2015,

254 the openings area represented 123.4 ha (6.9% 0.1 of the total area). In 2018, 95.5 ha

255 (5.3% 0.1) of surface covered by forest openings was identified (Figures 6 and 7).

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256257 Figure 7. Vegetation coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

258 the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

259

260 In 2005, the area covered by species of other genera (among them: Arbutus, Cupressus,

261 Pinus, Quercus) in the A. religiosa forest represented 122.9 ha (6.9% 0.4). In 2010 the

262 area increased to 352.1 ha (19.7% 5.5), and in 2015 it covered 513.7 ha (28.7% 15.8 of

263 the study area). In 2018, the area with this patch type increased to 538.9 ha (30.1% 11.1

264 of the total area) (Figures 6 and 7).

265

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266 From Figure 6 it can be drawn that the decrease in A. religiosa forest cover between 2005

267 and 2018 was not compensated by other forest types that became A. religiosa. Also, there

268 was a sharp drop between 2005 and 2010 and an apparent stabilization in the following

269 periods.

270

271 Discussion

272

273 Our results suggest that a process of fragmentation of the Abies forest is increasing in the

274 Izta-Popo-Zoquiapan National Park, which is causing coverage loss as it is replaced by other

275 genera (Arbutus, Cupressus, Pinus and Quercus, among others) (Figures 6 and 7).

276 However, area estimations in our work should be considered as approximate since the errors

277 in the classification (Stehman, 1997) in some cases were significant with respect to the

278 calculated percentages of change, particularly in the changes from Other Forest Cover to

279 A. religiosa (Table A in supplementary material). These errors could be caused by the

280 relative similarity in the spectral reflectance of these coverage classes. Nevertheless, a clear

281 trend towards habitat fragmentation was detected (Figures 5 and 6). These quantifications

282 were possible because the data used in this study come from high resolution remote sensing

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283 images, which allowed the identification of forest openings with a minimum area of 2.25 m2

284 (Figures 3 and 4B), unlike other detection methodologies based on satellite images that

285 often do not detect small clearings (Lobo and Dalling, 2014). Since these smaller openings

286 contribute to a much larger landscape fraction, the assessment of how disturbance

287 influences the lower strata (shrubs and herbaceous) requires the inclusion of a wide range

288 of forest opening sizes, including the smallest ones (~10 m2) and for this, high spatial

289 resolution images are required, which avoid underestimation (Chianucci et al., 2016).

290

291 In the Abies forests, the communities are usually so closed that treetops create limited

292 lighting conditions and inhibit the growth of the lower shrubs or herbaceous plants (Diaci,

293 2002). When disturbance events occur in these forests, whose species are very shade

294 tolerant, they open up canopy gaps that generally allow the presence and proliferation of

295 less tolerant species (Barden, 1979) (e.g. Pinus). This suggests that several disturbance

296 events (natural and induced) have indeed occurred in the A. religiosa forest of the Sierra

297 Nevada, since, among the species identified in the areas not covered by Abies during our

298 field trips, there are species that belong to established secondary vegetation after partially

299 or totally removing the primary vegetation coverage.

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300

301 It has been suggested that a forest opening created by logging allows to maintain the

302 ecological integrity since the forest dynamics is activated by the fall of the trees and the

303 improved use imitates the natural regime of disturbances (Lertzman et al., 1996) in a faster

304 way. However, our results indicate that the A. religiosa forest has decreased by 22%

305 (Figures 6 and 7); also, the dynamics of natural regeneration is being affected by other

306 factors, among which reforestations with different species than A. religiosa stand out, as well

307 as a slow process of natural regeneration in the fragments, which can take several decades

308 (Esseen, 1994).

309

310 Fragmentation and edge effects could increase the richness of tree species in forests

311 dominated by Abies. This offers new possibilities for other species to be established

312 (Lehvävirta et al., 2014). Pine plantation has increased in areas dominated by A. religiosa

313 (Figure 2D). In our field trips we observed sites with felled Abies individuals, resins or rotten

314 trees, and trees with exposed roots, as well as several stumps and dead individuals standing

315 (Figure 2A) which makes us think that the replacement of the Abies trees through the

316 introduction of pine is generating a different forest cover that modifies forest conditions and

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317 allows the development of other types of vegetation. This demands a redesign of

318 reforestation campaigns and other relevant activities, to implement conservation strategies

319 for this vegetation relict. Our data support these ideas since the shapes of the size structure

320 observed for forest openings in the first years of records (2005-2010) corresponds to a

321 closed canopy with uniform or continuous type coverage. However, as of 2015, this structure

322 changed drastically due to the disturbances of an exploited forest, which generated a

323 coverage characterized by presenting larger proportions of small and intermediate openings

324 and smaller areas of large patches of vegetation, which resulted in increased canopy

325 discontinuity.

326

327 Abies religiosa is considered a priority species for conservation according to the

328 management plan of the PNA Izta-Popo-Zoquiapan National Park. The most important

329 criterion given by this category is the feasibility of recovering and managing it, as well as the

330 additional effects that direct conservation would cause, such as the conservation of other

331 species or the habitat itself. The management plan of this PNA suggests that studies be

332 carried out to define measures aimed at their conservation; among them, distribution maps

333 preparation and population monitoring, as well as studies of the ecological processes

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334 involved in the dynamics of this ecosystem, and the environmental conditions and social

335 processes involved, since this information is required as support in decision making.

336

337 There is no doubt that the Abies forest is in a state that could be defined as extremely fragile,

338 given the particular conditions that it requires for its development, as well as the intensive

339 use that the farmers exert over the individuals of this plant community, either through

340 extraction of wood (Figure 2a) or by extending the agricultural frontier (Figure 1). The

341 populations in the isolated fragments are at greater risk of disappearing since they are

342 getting smaller and natural disturbances can eliminate them. The high vulnerability of A.

343 religiosa forests to climate change must also be recognized, given their high degree of

344 fragmentation and critical altitudinal limit (Pineda-López et al., 2013). On the other hand, it

345 is of vital importance the conservation of the habitat of these trees through a correct zoning

346 of the PNA since an extensive network of trails was built and maintained which it is used

347 with no restrictions and promote tree extraction even in well-conserved areas of this forest.

348 These roads can have direct ecological effects on the ecosystem, such as habitat alteration,

349 greater edge effect, changes in water balance, greater fragmentation, dispersion of exotic

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350 species and changes in species behavior and greater vulnerability to external factors

351 (Marcantonio et al., 2013; Vanbianchi et al., 2017; Pawlik, 2019).

352

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Captions

Figure 1. Polygon of the Abies religiosa forest in the Sierra Nevada, State of Mexico (INEGI,

2017) and polygon modified by the authors from the image of supervised classification of a

SPOT scene of 2018, done with SAGA software.

Figure 2. General aspect of the areas used to generate the training sites. The location of the

letters in the upper left image corresponds to the location of the photographs taken by the

authors during field trips in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. The

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upper left image has coordinates UTM 14N, Datum WGS84; it was generated by a

composition of bands 2,3 and 4 SPOT images of the zone. Bands were initially

pansharpened with SAGA software. A = forest openings formed by Abies religiosa cuttings;

B = forest openings induced from the creation of a path; C = closed canopy in the Abies

forest; D = forest openings corresponding to Pinus reforestation; E and F = area with Other

Forest Cover, mainly Arbutus, Cupressus, Pinus and Quercus.

Figure 3. Results of the supervised classification of SPOT images of the years 2005

(December), 2010 (March), 2015 (February) and 2018 (March) in the Abies religiosa forest

of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. Image classifications were done with SAGA software.

Figure 4. Patch size structure of different cover classes in the Abies religiosa forest of the

Sierra Nevada, Mexico, during the period from December 2005 to March 2018. Green bars

= Abies religiosa. Grey bars = Forest openings. Red bars = Other Forest Cover. Vertical

lines below the bars indicate the occurrence of patches with the Ln(area) indicated. Plots

were done with the ggplot2 library of R software.

Figure 5. Patch frequency of different types of land coverage from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies

religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

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Figure 6. Dynamics of land coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest

of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. * Data in each cell indicate estimated surface in hectares.

Data come from classified SPOT images reported in Figure 3. Calculations were done by

means of the CROSSTAB command of Terrset version of IDRISI software.

Figure 7. Vegetation coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest of

the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. Data come from classified SPOT images reported in Figure 3.

Image processing was done by means of the CROSSTAB command of Terrset version of

IDRISI software.

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Figure 1. Polygon of the Abies religiosa forest in the Sierra Nevada, State of Mexico (INEGI, 2017) and polygon modified by the authors from the image of supervised classification of a SPOT scene of 2018, done

with SAGA software.

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Figure 2. General aspect of the areas used to generate the training sites. The location of the letters in the upper left image corresponds to the location of the photographs taken by the authors during field trips in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. The upper left image has coordinates UTM 14N, Datum

WGS84; it was generated by a composition of bands 2,3 and 4 SPOT images of the zone. Bands were initially pansharpened with SAGA software. A = forest openings formed by Abies religiosa cuttings; B = forest openings induced from the creation of a path; C = closed canopy in the Abies forest; D = forest

openings corresponding to Pinus reforestation; E and F = area with Other Forest Cover, mainly Arbutus, Cupressus, Pinus and Quercus.

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Figure 3. Results of the supervised classification of SPOT images of the years 2005 (December), 2010 (March), 2015 (February) and 2018 (March) in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

Image classifications were done with SAGA software.

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Figure 4. Patch size structure of different cover classes in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico, during the period from December 2005 to March 2018. Green bars = Abies religiosa. Grey bars = Forest openings. Red bars = Other Forest Cover. Vertical lines below the bars indicate the occurrence of

patches with the Ln(area) indicated. Plots were done with the ggplot2 library of R software.

177x160mm (300 x 300 DPI)

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Figure 5. Patch frequency of different types of land coverage from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico.

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Figure 6. Dynamics of land coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. * Data in each cell indicate estimated surface in hectares. Data come from classified SPOT

images reported in Figure 3. Calculations were done by means of the CROSSTAB command of Terrset version of IDRISI software.

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Figure 7. Vegetation coverage changes from 2005 to 2018 in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. Data come from classified SPOT images reported in Figure 3. Image processing was done by means

of the CROSSTAB command of Terrset version of IDRISI software.

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Table 1. Satellite images used for analyzing coverage dynamics in the Abies religiosa forest of the Sierra Nevada, State of Mexico, Mexico.Year Date Satellite Type* K/J2005 December 25th SPOT 5 P 589/3112005 December 25th SPOT 5 M 589/3112010 March 28th SPOT 5 P 589/3112010 March 28th SPOT 5 M 589/3112015 January 28th SPOT 6 P 589/3112015 January 28th SPOT 6 M 589/3112015 February 10th SPOT 7 P 589/3122015 February 10th SPOT 7 M 589/3122018 March 4th SPOT 7 P 589/3122018 March 4th SPOT 7 M 589/312*P= Panchromatic; M= Multiespectral

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