The active effect of natural regeneration on understory vegetation and diversity on clear-cut forestlands, in contrast to conifer reforestation, is still controversial. Here we investigated differences in understory vegetation by comparing naturally regenerated deciduous forests (NR) and reforested spruce plantations (SP) aged 20–40 years on 12 similar clear-cuts of subalpine old-growth spruce-...

Determining how anthropogenic disturbances affect site productivity through bioassays requires a complete understanding of both overstory and understory vegetation. This study was installed in 1997 to determine how soil compaction and intensive harvesting affected the inherent site productivity of pine stands on the western boundary of loblolly pine’s (Pinus taeda L.) natural range. We measured...

[1] The goal of this study is to understand the interaction between belowground and aboveground ecohydrologic dynamics as facilitated by hydraulic redistribution. We analyze the partitioning of moisture and energy between tall and understory vegetation, and soil evaporation. Both the competitive and facilitative dependencies are examined using a shared resource model where the soil serves as a ...

The seasonal abundance patterns of insects inhabiting the understory vegetation of a mixed deciduous forest were examined with the help of the sweep-net sampling method. During the study period of 2 years, insects were sampled regularly from the understory vegetation of the three selected habitats (moist-deciduous, riverine, and teak plantation) of the mixed deciduous forest. Insect abundance w...

Tropical forests vegetation and community research have tended to focus on the tree component, and limited attention has been paid to understory vegetation. Species diversity and composition of the understory of tropical seasonal rain forest were inventoried in a 625 m2 area (for sapling layer) and a 100 m2 area (for herb/seedling layer) in three 1 ha plots. We found 3068 individuals belonging ...

Post-fire survival, composition and regeneration of understory species in the boreal forest have shown to be affected by several factors, where consumption of the organic soil layer together with altered soil properties play important parts. There has however also been shown that the pre-fire site characteristics affect the post-fire understory vegetation. This study aimed to investigate the ef...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different landscape structures on the understory Collembola community. Four different forest physiognomies were compared: Pinus spp. plantation, Eucalyptus spp. plantation, Araucaria angustifolia plantation, and a remaining native Araucaria forest. Three areas containing two sampling units (25 mx2 m each) were selected in each forest p...

Since the mid-1990’s, several studies have been undertaken to evaluate thinning treatments designed to promote development of complex forest structure in order to enhance ecological functioning and biological diversity. Most of these studies have focused on forest responses to one or possibly two thinning entries. In contrast, this study, the Unevenaged Management Project (UAMP), is evaluating ...

Expansion of oil palm agriculture is currently one of the main drivers of habitat modification in Southeast Asia. Habitat modification can have significant effects on biodiversity, ecosystem function, and interactions between species by altering species abundances or the available resources in an ecosystem. Increasing complexity within modified habitats has the potential to maintain biodiversit...

Excessive herbivory can have transformative effects on forest understory vegetation, converting diverse communities into depauperate ones, often with increased abundance of non-native plants. White-tailed deer are a problematic herbivore throughout much of eastern North America and alter forest understory community structure. Reducing (by culling) or eliminating (by fencing) deer herbivory is e...