Aspen has been an ecologically important, though relatively minor, component of the Lake States (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) forests for millennia. General Land Office records from the 1800s indicate that aspen comprised a small fraction of the region’s eastern forests, but was more extensive on the western edge. Then Euro-American settlement in the 1800s brought land clearing, timber h...

The Effect of Successional stages on Density and Composition Bird Species (Case study: Shast Kolateh Forest)

Drought can impact local vegetation dynamics in a long term. In order to predict the possible successional pathway of local community under drought, the responses of some drought resistance indices of six successional seral species in the semi-arid Loss Hilly Region of China were illustrated and compared on three levels of soil water deficits along three growing months (7, 8 and 9). The results...

Carbon (C) uptake rates in many forests are sustained, or decline only briefly, following disturbances that partially defoliate the canopy. The mechanisms supporting such functional resistance to moderate forest disturbance are largely unknown. We used a large-scale experiment, in which > 6700 Populus (aspen) and Betula (birch) trees were stem-girdled within a 39-ha area, to identify mechanisms...

One of the greatest challenges for ecologists this century will be restoring forests on degraded tropical lands. This restoration will require understanding complex processes that shape successional pathways, including interactions between trees and other plants. Shrub species often quickly invade disturbed tropical lands, yet little is known about whether they facilitate or inhibit subsequent ...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about how change the importance of soil seed bank and relationship between seed mass and abundance during vegetation succession is crucial for understanding vegetation dynamics. Many studies have been conducted, but their ecological mechanisms of community assembly are not fully understood. METHODOLOGY We examined the seasonal dynamics of the vegetation and soil seed bank...

Differences among tropical tree species in survival and growth to light play a key role in plant competition and community composition. Two canopy species with contrasting functional traits dominating early and late successional stages, respectively, in a tropical montane rain forest of Hainan Island, China, were selected in a pot experiment under 4 levels of light intensity (full, 50%, 30%, an...

Ecological interaction networks constantly reorganize as interspecific interactions change across successional stages and environmental gradients. This reorganization can also be associated with the extent to which species change their preference for types of niches available in their local sites. Despite the pervasiveness of these interaction changes, previous studies have revealed that networ...

Changes to minor patch types in forested landscapes may have large consequences for forest biodiversity. The effects of forest management and environment on these secondary patch types are often poorly understood. For example, do early-to-mid successional minor patch types become more expansive as late successional forest types are fragmented or do they also become more fragmented in managed la...

Organismal diversity among and within species may affect ecosystem function with effects transmitting across ecosystem boundaries. Whether recipient communities adjust their composition, in turn, to maximize their function in response to changes in donor composition at these two scales of diversity is unknown. We use small stream communities that rely on riparian subsidies as a model system. We...