The soil type in the study area comprised combination of sandstone, coarse-grained, humult Ultisols, and sandy residual parent material which corresponds to Ultisols soil order based on Soil Taxonomy Classification [10, 11, 20, 23].

Three habitats were selected: a primary forest (or "old growth forest" according to Clark (1996)) near the "El llano" water dam (9[degrees]45'56.07" N - 83[degrees]51'47.11" W, 1 640msm), in a tropical lower montane wet forest area with ultisol humult soil; a secondary forest (or "young secondary forest" according to Clark (1996)) left to natural succession for about 15 years (9[degrees]45'29.52" N - 83[degrees]51'23.27" W, 1 684 msm), in a tropical lower montane wet forest area with ultisol humult soil, and a Cupressus lusitanica plantation that has been without management for nearly 40 years and therefore has a poorly developed understory dominated by hardwood leaves species (9[degrees]47'52" N - 83[degrees]51'51" W, 1 309msm).

The soils in the study area were derived from a mixture of sandstone, coarse-grained, humult ultisols, and sandy residual parent material [19, 28].

The dominant suborders of Ultisols are Aquults, Humults, Udults, Ustults, and Xerults (Table 3-5).