Summary
Published in Oecologia 162: 153-161
Large-scale synchronous variations in community dynamics are well documented for a vast array of organisms, but are considerably less understood for forest trees. Because of temporal variations in canopy gap dynamics, forest communities—even old-growth ones—are never at equilibrium at the stand scale. This paucity of equilibrium may also be true at the regional scale. Our objectives were to determine (1) if nonequilibrium dynamics caused by temporal variations in the formation of canopy gaps are regionally synchronized, and (2) if spatiotemporal variations in canopy gap formation affect the relative abundance of tree species in the understory. We examined these questions by analyzing variations in the suppression and release history of Acer saccharum Marsh. and Fagus grandifolia Ehrh. from 481 growth series of understory saplings taken from 34 mature stands. We observed that (1) the proportion of stems in release as a function of time exhibited a U-shaped pattern over the last 35 years, with the lowest levels occurring during 1975–1985, and that (2) the response to this in terms of species composition was that A. saccharum became more abundant at sites that had the highest proportion of stems in release during 1975–1985. We concluded that the understory dynamics, typically thought of as a stand-scale process, may be regionally synchronized.
Sector(s):
Forests
Categorie(s):
Scientific Article
Theme(s):
Forest Ecology, Forestry Research, Forests
Author(s)
GRAVEL, Dominique, Marilou BEAUDET and Christian MESSIER
Year of publication :
2010
How to get the publication :
Keywords :
érable à sucre, hêtre à grandes feuilles, dendrochronologie, gaule, article scientifique de recherche forestière, écologie forestière, Acer saccharum, Fagus grandifolia, forest ecology, sugar maple, American beech, dendrochronology, sapling
