scholarly journals Influence of Mature Overstory Trees on Adjacent 12-Year Regeneration and the Woody Understory: Aggregated Retention versus Intact Forest

Forests ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda Curzon ◽  
Susan Baker ◽  
Christel Kern ◽  
Brian Palik ◽  
Anthony D’Amato
2005 ◽  
Vol 83 (11) ◽  
pp. 1391-1401 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. King

The architecture of saplings of temperate deciduous species of the southeastern United States was compared with that of tropical evergreen species of Central America, Borneo, and northeastern Australia. The deciduous species were more planar in the understory than were the tropical species, because of (i) more planar leaf displays within branches, (ii) a high frequency of arching, plagiotropic main stems (associated with greater plasticity in crown symmetry in relation to light), and (iii) a lower height of first branching. The deciduous species also had more planar branches than did subtropical and temperate evergreen angiosperms. This greater planarity in temperate deciduous understories may be associated with the simultaneous positioning of most leaves during a single flush in the spring. In contrast, saplings in tropical understories typically bear multiple leaf cohorts and position new leaves at the peripheries of existing leaf displays. These results and those of other studies suggest that there are adaptive links between plant architecture and phenology. Other factors, such as latitudinal variation in sun angles, may influence crown shape in overstory trees, but did not seem to be involved here, possibly because the filtering effect of the canopy results in smaller latitudinal shifts in understory illumination angles during the growing season. Thus, by favouring the deciduous habit, the cold winters and warm, humid summers of the eastern deciduous biome of North America appear to have had a notable influence on sapling architecture.


1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Dey ◽  
Paul S. Johnson ◽  
H.E. Garrett

This paper describes a method for modeling the regeneration of even-aged oak stands in the Ozark Highlands of southern Missouri. The approach is based on (i) a growth model that is applicable to both oak sprouts and advance reproduction and (ii) a method for probabilistically estimating future size distributions of trees. The modeling method is illustrated using sprouting frequency, survival, and 5th-year height data for stump sprouts of five oak species. To consider the large residual variation in estimates of future sprout heights, nonlinear regression estimates of heights and their prediction errors are simultaneously used to estimate the probability that a sprout originating from a parent tree of a given species and diameter will grow into a specified 5th-year height class. To account for sprouting and survival failures, those probabilities are multiplied by logistic regression estimates of the probability that a parent tree will produce a sprout that survives to age 5. The resulting joint probabilities facilitate predicting future height distributions of surviving sprouts when the model is applied to a preharvest inventory of overstory trees.


1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Brose ◽  
David Van Lear

Abstract A study was initiated in 1994 to evaluate the degree of bole damage and crown decline residual overstory trees would experience because of prescribed burning of shelterwood stands. Three oak-dominated shelterwood stands, partially harvested 2 to 4 yr earlier, were divided into four treatments (unburned control, spring burn, summer burn, and winter burn). Fifteen permanent sampling points were systematically located in each 5 to 12 ac treatment area, and overstory trees were selected from these points with a 10 BAF prism. Before burning, each tree was evaluated for lower bole and crown condition and reevaluated two growing seasons after the fires. Hickory, oak, and yellow-poplar were largely unaffected by the winter and summer prescribed fires but displayed bole damage and crown decline following spring burning. American beech and red maple declined after all fire treatments. Fire damage to oak, hickory, and yellow-poplar was strongly associated to presence of logging slash near a tree's base. Directional felling or moving slash should minimize injury to these trees. This research will aid resource managers wishing to use prescribed fire in shelterwood stands to favor oak regeneration while minimizing damage to residual overstory oaks. South. J. Appl. For. 23(2):88-93.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 624-635
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Curtin ◽  
Benjamin O. Knapp ◽  
Steven B. Jack ◽  
Lance A. Vickers ◽  
David R. Larsen ◽  
...  

Recent interest in continuous cover forest management of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) ecosystems raises questions of long-term sustainability because of uncertainty in rates of canopy recruitment of longleaf pine trees. We destructively sampled 130 naturally regenerated, midstory longleaf pines across an 11 300 ha, second-growth longleaf pine landscape in southwestern Georgia, United States, to reconstruct individual tree height growth patterns. We tested effects of stand density (using a competition index) and site quality (based on two site classifications: mesic and xeric) on height growth and demographics of midstory trees. We also compared height growth of paired midstory and overstory trees to infer stand regeneration and recruitment dynamics. In low-density stands, midstory trees were younger and grew at greater rates than trees within high-density stands. Midstory trees in low-density stands were mostly from a younger regeneration cohort than their paired overstory trees, whereas midstory–overstory pairs in high-density stands were mostly of the same cohort. Our results highlight the importance of releasing midstory longleaf pine trees from local competition for sustained height growth in partial-harvesting management systems. They also demonstrate patterns of long-term persistence in high-density stands, indicating flexibility in the canopy recruitment process of this shade-intolerant tree species.


2019 ◽  
Vol 449 ◽  
pp. 117453
Author(s):  
Carlos Delano Cardoso de Oliveira ◽  
Izabela Regina Cardoso de Oliveira ◽  
Marcio Seiji Suganuma ◽  
Giselda Durigan

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl R. Buermeyer ◽  
Constance A. Harrington

Abstract Changes in management objectives for some forestlands in the Pacific Northwest have spurred interest in the creation of multistoried stands and the use of natural regeneration systems, but data on such systems are lacking. We assessed the status of the overstory trees and the regeneration 12 yr after a clearcut harvest with reserve trees in an even-aged, 145-yr-old Douglas-fir stand on a moderately productive site (site class 3) in southwest Washington. The 15 ha harvest unit was superimposed over two areas differentially thinned 15 and 34 yr before clearcutting. The clearcut harvest retained 18 trees/ha with a mean diameter of 63 cm. The reserved overstory trees had a 93% survival rate after 12 yr; most dead trees had been windthrown. Diameter growth for the reserved trees averaged 3.3 cm and was greatest during the most recent 3 yr period, which also had the highest growing-season precipitation. In a 1 ha mapped area, there were 5,854 seedlings/ha, and more than 99% of the regeneration was Douglas-fir. Most seedlings were less than 2 m tall. Seedling density was somewhat clumped (value of 2.1 for Pielou's index of nonrandomness), but 79% of randomly located 4.04 m2 (mil-acre) plots and 98% of 5 × 5 m grid cells had at least one conifer seedling. There was no obvious pattern of regeneration based on direction from the reserved trees, but both seedling density and seedling size within the drip lines of reserved tree crowns were less than in the rest of the area. The number of seedlings was similar on the two halves of the plot corresponding to the original thinning blocks, but seedling size and age differed. In the half of the study plot that had been twice lightly thinned, only 14% of the seedlings were >0.5 m tall; however, 41% of the seedlings were >0.5 m in the block that had been thinned more heavily. There was no difference between the thinning blocks in the ages of seedlings ≤0.5 m tall (mean age of 5 yr). This example of clearcutting with reserve trees resulted in reasonable survival of the overstory trees and adequate stocking but slow growth rates in the naturally regenerated Douglas-fir. Heavier thinning before harvest was associated with more advance regeneration, more shrub cover, and less windthrow of the reserved trees than in the more lightly thinned block. If an abundance of tree species other than Douglas-fir was desired on this site, interplanting would be required. West. J. Appl. For.17(2):78–85.


1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 1652-1655 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Bernier ◽  
M. Brazeau

In mid-June 1985, visual symptoms of boron deficiency were observed on the seedlings of several tree species in the understory of the deciduous forest of the Quebec Appalachians and the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Symptoms observed on sugar maple (Acersaccharum Marsh.) and red maple (Acerrubrum L.) are described and illustrated. Although symptoms were most abundant in stands on sandy soils, they were present throughout a vast area. Symptoms were most developed on fast-growing regeneration, while on overstory trees they were seen in only one of the nine sites visited. This temporary boron deficiency is thought to be related to the low temperatures that prevailed during the 2nd week of June 1985, together with the heavy rainfall in the first 2 weeks of that month.


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