Background/Question/MethodsIncreasing efforts have been made to investigate the recovery of logged tropical forests with the aim of partially offsetting carbon and biodiversity losses. Among the restoration strategies, the natural regrowth of disturbed forests is considered a key low-cost mechanism for climate change mitigation and landscape restoration. Nevertheless, the complex patterns of forest recovery following logging in the tropics are not fully understood. The recovery of forests from logging is of importance especially on the island of Borneo, where relative deforestation rates are the highest among any major tropical region and selective logging is a widespread harvest technique.In 2010–2020, we monitored annual tree growth, mortality, and recruitment in 163 permanent plots (25 x 25 m each) within the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) Project in a selectively logged tropical rainforest in Malaysian Borneo. Along the logging gradient ranging from heavily, moderately, and lightly logged stands to old-growth forests, we studied the dynamics of tree diversity and composition recovery as well as the impacts of the El Niño drought (2015–2016) on tree growth and mortality. Results/ConclusionsThe results show that increasing the intensity of logging increased the magnitude of the compositional changes, raised the proportion of pioneer species, and decreased the percentage of late-successional species (dipterocarps). In heavily logged forests, there were no signs of recovery in terms of species composition and diversity despite the high species turnover. During 2010–2020, the pioneers grew initially faster than dipterocarps, thus causing faster regrowth of heavily logged plots, however, their growth rate dropped significantly during the El Niño drought (2015–2016) and was similar to or lower than that of dipterocarps since then (i.e., did not recover). The findings indicate that the logging-induced compositional changes may make the forest more vulnerable to future drought events under climate change.
