Post-cropping change and dynamics in soil and vegetation properties after forest clearing: Example of the semi-arid Mikea Region (southwestern Madagascar)

Abstract This study concerns post-cultural dynamics in the semi-arid South-West of Madagascar (Analabo area, near the Mikea Forest). A synchronic comparison was performed on a set of abandoned fields plots aged from 2 to 30 years and on forest and savanna reference ecosystems, located on cambic arenosols developed from same Quaternary dune sands. The studied parameters concerned mainly a few physical and chemical soil properties (density, permeability, compaction, texture, C, N, K, P content). Important changes occur in the post-cultural succession: an increase of the soil density and compaction, and decrease of the soil upper layer permeability. Consequently, slash and burn cultivation leads to a packing and an induration of the soil surface. Results about edaphic indicators have shown that the physical parameters used better discriminate various stages of evolution than the chemical parameters do. The multivariate analysis of soil indicators shows that vegetative succession over 30 years in a forest ecosystem cleared, burnt, cultivated and left, does not lead to features corresponding to a closed-canopy forest but rather to those of a tree savanna with open, mixed woody-herbaceous vegetation. The primary dense dry deciduous regeneration of the primary forest is very low or nil. In the semi-arid SW Madagascar (Analabo region), post-cultural dynamics conditions consists in a savanna-formation process, controlled by: (1) the intensity and duration of the disturbance (during the cultivation phase); and (2) the more drastic environmental conditions (including both climate and soil).