Study site

The Nizanda region (16°39’30” N, 95°00’40” W) is located on the Pacific watershed of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca State, southern Mexico. The climate is warm, subhumid with summer rains (Aw₀(w)igw”) and an annual precipitation of ca. 900 mm, strongly concentrated in the rainy season (mid-May to mid-October; Pérez-García, Meave & Gallardo, 2001). Tropical dry forest is the dominant vegetation type (Pérez-García, Meave, Villaseñor, Gallardo & Lebrija-Trejos, 2010). In this region, slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the main human activities, commonly involving the abandonment of plots after a few years of use, thus initiating a secondary succession process (Lebrija-Trejos et al., 2008).