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43 results for “forest understory plant”
Understory plant community data from repeated plot sampling (1978-2019) in old-growth northern hardwood forest, northern Michigan (Dukes RNA, Hiawatha National Forest)
This data-set includes long-term, permanent-plot-based data for understory plant communities in old-growth mixed northern hardwood-hemlock forest and forested peatland in the Upper Great Lakes region. Data for over 900 understory quadrats (all associated with long-term canopy data from larger permanent plots) included multiple (2-5) remeasurements over 23-40 years, with longest periods and most remeasurements for upland forest types. The Dukes Research Natural Area (RNA) (https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/rnas/locations/dukes) in the Hiawatha National Forest (Marquette Co., MI) includes ca. 100 ha of largely unlogged, original forest. Publications cited below include more detailed information about the site. About half of the RNA supports upland forests intergrading from hemlock (Tsuga candensis) dominance to mixtures of hemlock and northern hardwoods species. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is dominant over much of the upland area, with, locally, significant admixtures of beech (Fagus grandifolia), yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), and red maple (Acer rubrum). Topographic relief is very slight with total elevational change within the RNA only about 10 m. The stand is within a few km of the western limit of the continuous range of beech. In 1935, 248 continuing forest inventory (CFI) plots (circular, 0.2 acre) were established on a regular grid throughout the RNA, and these have been the subject of repeated sampling through 2018-2019 and support continuing long-term study addressing canopy tree communities (canopy data to be deposited in a separate project). Examples of resulting publications are cited elsewhere in metadata, and can provide more detailed information about the RNA. In 1978-80, U.S. Forest Service researchers, directed by Jan Schultz and Frederick Metzger, initiated studies of understory communities, including herbaceous species and woody seedlings. Data were derived from four sub-quadrats within each of the CFI plots. These quadrats were re-estab
Understory percent cover, plant traits, canopy LAI, PAR, temperature, and soil moisture data at multiple time points for sites in the burn chronosequence and Indian Point forest at the University of Michigan Biological Station, Pellston, MI (2022-2023)
Community ecology has sought to understand the mechanisms by which plant communities are assembled through time and space. One prominent way to address how communities are assembled is by quantifying functional traits. While there is a tremendous body of literature on functional traits, debate persists about how to account for variation in measured traits. For example, intraspecific trait variation (ITV) can be equal to or greater than interspecific trait variation and ITV has also been found to vary greatly across years. Therefore, there is a need to account for variability in functional trait measures among and within species and through time to improve our understanding of community assembly. Chronosequences are a powerful tool to address temporal changes in community dynamics, however, the inclusion of understory plants in forest chronosequence studies is still relatively uncommon. Previous chronosequence studies have been primarily performed in grasslands or in a limited subset of forest types, so further work is needed in understory plant traits across other ecosystems and climates to improve trait-based understanding of understory plant communities through time. Additionally, because plant traits change as ecosystems age, community interactions are likely to change with ecosystem age. Interactions of particular interest are herbivory, arthropod predation, and the influence of plant traits on arthropod diversity.
dataset: Responses of the structure and function of the understory plant communities to precipitation reduction across forest ecosystems in Germany
<p><strong>Context</strong>: Understory plant communities play a central role in forest biogeochemistry and the recruitment of trees making up the future forest. It is so far poorly understood how climate change will affect understory structure and functions in forest of different management intensity.</p> <p> </p><p><strong>Aims</strong>: We monitored understory functional traits including transpiration and carbon isotope discrimination, community structure and diversity during two growing seasons as affected by drought in forests subjected to different management intensities. We hypothesized that drought would affect ecophysiological traits such as transpiration but not species richness and diversity. Moreover, we assumed that stand-specific characteristics and forest management intensity modify the drought-resistance of the understory community.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Methods</strong>: We set up roofs in beech and conifer stands with different management intensity in three different regions across Germany and a drought event close to the 2003 drought was imposed in two consecutive years.</p> <p><strong>Results</strong>: Precipitation reduction decreased soil water content by 2 to 8%, depending on stand and region, in comparison to the control subplots. In the first year, leaf level transpiration was reduced for different functional groups, which scaled to community transpiration modified by additional effects of drought on functional group specific leaf area. Acclimation effects in most functional groups were observed in the second year. We did not observe a significant reduction of plant diversity or a consistent management effect upon drought.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion</strong>: Our results indicate high plasticity and acclimation responses of the forest understory vegetation to changing climate conditions and recurrent drought events.</p> <p><strong>Abbreviations:</strong></p> <p>sp12 - campaign spring 2012; ls12 - campaign late summer 2012; es13 - campaign early summer 2013; ls13-campaign late summer 2013</p> <p>SEW16 - Schorfheide plot 16; SEW49 - Schorfheide plot 49; SEW48 - Schorfheide plot 48;HEW03 - Hainich plot 03; HEW12 - Hainich plot 12; HEW47- Hainich plot 47; AEW13 - Alb plot 13; AEW29 - Alb plot 29; AEW08 - Alb plot 08<br> explo - exploratory<br> SEW - Schorfheide; HEW - Hainich; AEW - Schwäbische Alb<br> in - conifer intensive managed; ma - beech managed; un - beech unmanaged<br> c- control; r - roof<br> LAIs - community leaf area index m<sup>2</sup>/m<sup>2</sup>; H - Shannon´s diversity index; Ts - community transpiration rate (weighted by LAI) mmol H<sub>2</sub>O m-<sup>2</sup> leaf area s-<sup>1</sup>; Ets - Evapotranspiration (mmol/m2/sec); E - Evaporation (mmol/m2/sec); C - leaf photosynthetic carbon isotope discrimination (∆<sup>13</sup>C) according to Farquhar et al. (1982); Cs - community photosynthetic carbon isotope discrimination (∆<sup>13</sup>C) according to Farquhar et al. (1982) (weighted by LAI)</p> <p> </p>
Peeking under the canopy: anomalously short fire-return intervals alter subalpine forest understory plant communities
Changing climate and fire regimes are profoundly affecting temperate coniferous forests, driving greatly reduced tree cover postfire. However, whether similar changes are present in the understory of these forests remains less well-understood. We sampled understory plant communities in 20 plot pairs across Greater Yellowstone (Wyoming, USA) in July and August 2021, with each including one plot burned at short (<30 year) fire-return interval and one plot burned in the same most recent fire but not burned previously for >125 years. We also included 11 plot pairs meeting our definition of short- and long-interval fire that were sampled 12 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires in summer 2000. We also used previously collected published and unpublished data to compare understory communities following recent (2016) short-interval fires to those following the previous long-interval fire in the same general area. In each plot, percent cover of understory plant species was estimated in 0.25-m2 quadrats, and species richness determined via a whole-plot sweep. Understory plant community cover, richness, and diversity did not differ by interval class, but species able to persist in drier conditions and in lower vegetation zones became more abundant following shot interval fire. Further, previously distinct understory communities following long-interval fire in two regions of Greater Yellowstone became slightly more similar following recent short-interval fire. Dissimilarity between plot pairs increased with greater historical snowfall and decreased with time since fire and postfire winter snowfall. These changes to understory plant communities may continue with ongoing shifts in climate and fire across temperate and boreal forests.
Data from: Addition of nitrogen to canopy versus understory has different effects on leaf traits of understory plants in a subtropical evergreen broad–leaved forest
<p>Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has substantial effects on forest ecosystems. The effects of N deposition on understory plants have been simulated by spraying N on the forest floor. Such understory addition of N (UAN) might simulate atmospheric N deposition in a biased manner, because it bypasses the canopy.</p> <p>We compared the effects of UAN and canopy addition of N (CAN) at 0, 25, and 50 kg N ha<sup>–1</sup> year<sup>–1</sup> on specific leaf area (SLA), leaf construction costs (CC), concentrations of leaf carbon ([C]), nitrogen ([N]), phosphorus ([P]), minerals ([Mineral]), nitrate ([NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup>]), lignin ([Lignin]), lipids ([Lipid]), organic acids ([OA]), soluble phenolics ([SP]), total non-structural carbohydrates ([TNC]), and total structural carbohydrates ([TSC]) in six dominant understory species in a subtropical evergreen forest after five years of N treatments.</p> <p>We found that leaf CC, [C], [Lignin], [OA], [TNC] and [TSC] were significantly affected by N-addition approach and rate, but leaf [P] and [Lipid] were affected by N-addition approach and N-addition rate, respectively; leaf CC, [C], [P], [OA], and [TNC] were significantly lower under UAN than under CAN, but leaf [TSC] and [Lignin] were significantly higher and lower, respectively, under UAN than under CAN at 50 kg N ha<sup>–1</sup> year<sup>–1</sup>; the decline of leaf [C] and [Lignin] contributed to the significantly lower leaf CC under UAN than under CAN.</p> <p><em>Synthesis</em>. We show that canopy and understory N addition exerted significantly different effects on leaf traits of understory plants. The results indicate that understory plants in subtropical forest respond differently to understory addition of N from those to atmospheric deposition of N. Further studies are warranted to evaluate the unbiased ecological processes and functions of forest ecosystem responding to atmospheric N deposition via both canopy and understory N addition experiments over a longer term.</p>
Data from: Direct effects of a non-native invader erode native plant fitness in the forest understory
1. The direct role of non-native plant invaders in driving negative population- and community-level processes of native species has been recently questioned. Addressing this controversy requires determining quantitatively if invaders negatively affect native population fitness. Because the invasion of non-natives often coincides with other anthropogenic stressors, experiments that partition the putative impact of non-natives from other known stressors and assess their potential synergies are required. While many studies have examined the effects of non-natives on components of native plant performance, studies that decompose the net fitness effects of non-natives from other anthropogenic stressors on population growth rate are lacking. 2. We used six years of detailed demographic data to parameterize a size-dependent integral projection model to examine the individual and combined effects of an allelochemical-producing invader (Alliaria petiolata) and an overabundant ungulate herbivore (Odocoileus virginianus) on the population dynamics of an understory perennial (Trillium erectum). 3. We show that Alliaria consistently and negatively affects the population dynamics of Trillium. Specifically, this invader reduces native population growth rate and alters the size distribution of the population at equilibrium. Alliaria also works in concert with the known negative impacts of overabundant white-tailed deer, illustrating the additive effects of anthropogenic stressors on native plant dynamics. 4. Synthesis. Alliaria's effects on vital rates differed in magnitude and sign across the native's lifecycle, highlighting the importance of detailed demographic analyses. Globally, our study provides novel empirical support for the claim that non-native invasive species can significantly and directly reduce the fitness of native plants.
Data from: Increases in understory plant cover and richness persist following restoration treatments in Pinus ponderosa forests
<p>A combination of forest thinning followed by prescribed burning is widely applied in the western US to increase ecosystem resistance and resilience to disturbances. Understory plant community responses may be driven both by management treatments and climatic factors. Thus, responses to treatments during a 20-year megadrought have implications for the role of management in fostering adaptive capacity to climate change.</p> <p>We used a network of five sites (600 plots) spanning an environmental gradient in ponderosa pine (<em>Pinus ponderosa</em>) forests of the American Southwest, an ecosystem that is broadly distributed and actively managed throughout the western US. We used repeated long-term monitoring data to quantify plant community responses to treatment 1-5, 6-10, and >10 years post-implementation. Specifically, we focused on the effects of treatment and abiotic conditions on native and nonnative plant cover and species richness, and on the proportion of native species with northern (cool-mesic) biogeographic affinities.</p> <p>Overall, thinning and prescribed burning nearly doubled native cover and increased native species richness by about 50% relative to untreated controls. These effects persisted for over a decade after treatment, even under the influence of significant and persistent drought. Cover and richness were also greater on intermediate to wet sites. Finally, native species with northern biogeographic affinities were reduced for up to five years after treatment relative to those with southern (warm-xeric) affinities, and in dry years, indicating that both management and interannual climate variability may foster shifts in plant communities that are more resilient to a warming climate.</p> <p>Synthesis and applications: In ponderosa pine forests of the American Southwest, tree thinning followed by prescribed burning will generally promote restoration goals of increasing resilience to climate change by enhancing the diversity and abundance of native understory plant species, even during a persistent 20-year megadrought.</p>
Native herbivore browsing alters plant physical and chemical traits in a eucalypt forest understory
<p>Macropods exhibit selective herbivory on plant traits within and between species and hence can alter plant trait variation. In this study we asked, what are the effects of macropod herbivory on intraspecific variation in plant traits of forest understorey species? We tested the effects of herbivory by macropods on eight plant traits, in nine understorey species using a herbivore exclusion experiment. Generalised linear mixed models were used to test for differences between herbivory treatments in trait means as well as variation within species and at the community level. Macropod herbivory resulted in differences in either the mean trait value or trait variance within a species for seven of the eight tested plant traits. Macropod exclusion resulted in larger dimensions of size for most species, as well as changes in specific leaf area, moisture content, and carbon content of leaves. Further, community-weighted means of specific leaf area, moisture content, and leaf nitrogen were lower in the presence of macropods. Plant trait variance was altered for three of the seven community weighted traits. This study demonstrates a mechanism through which macropods can drive changes in the traits of understorey plant species. Plant traits have been linked to various larger scale ecological processes including ecosystem flammability, nutrient cycling, response to global change and habitat suitability for other organisms. Therefore, herbivore-induced changes in plant trait variation and community composition could have important flow on effects for other environmental processes and hence should be considered in management decisions regarding fire-prone ecosystems.</p>
Changes in forest structure drive temperature preferences of boreal understory plant communities
<p>1. The local climate in forest understories can deviate substantially from ambient conditions. Moreover, forest microclimates are often characterized by cyclic changes driven by management activities such as clear-cutting and subsequent planting. To understand how and why understory plant communities change, both ambient climate change and temporal variation in forest structure has to be considered. 2. We used inventories from 11436 productive forest sites in Sweden repeated every 10th year 1993 - 2017 to examine how variation in forest structure influences changes in the average value of minimum and maximum temperature preferences of all species in a community, i.e. community temperature indices (CTI). We then evaluated to what extent these changes were driven by local extinctions and colonizations, respectively, and to what extent the difference in CTI value between two inventories were related to changes in forest density and in macroclimate. Lastly, we tested whether effects on CTI change by these two drivers were modified by topography, soil moisture and tree species composition. 3. CTI values of the understory plant communities increased after clear-cutting, and decreased during periods when the forest grew denser. During the period immediately after clear-cutting, changes were predominately driven by colonizations of species with a preference for higher temperatures. During the forest regeneration phase, both colonization by species preferring lower temperatures and local extinctions of species preferring higher temperatures increased. The change in understory CTI over 10-year periods was explained more by changes in forest density, than by changes in macroclimate. Soil moisture, topography and forest tree species composition modified to some extent the effects of changes in forest density and in macroclimate on understory CTI values. 4. Synthesis. Via stand manipulation, forest management impacts the effects of regional climate on understory plant communities. This implies that forest management by creating denser stands locally even can counterbalance the effects of regional changes in climate by creating denser stands locally. Consequently, interpretations of changes in the mean temperature preference of species in forest understory communities should take forest management regimes into account. </p>
Chronic browsing by an introduced mammalian herbivore in a tropical island alters species composition and functional traits of forest understory plant communities
<p>Mammalian herbivores have large-scale impacts on vegetation, altering structure and species composition, especially in tropical grasslands and savannas. However, there is limited understanding of the potential impacts of mammalian herbivores in tropical wet forests, where they are typically less abundant. We investigated the effects of an introduced mammalian herbivore chital (<em>Axis axis</em>) on vegetation structure, composition and leaf functional traits of tropical evergreen forests of the Andaman Islands, India. Across seven islands, representing a gradient of herbivore densities, increasing chital presence was associated with decreased understory richness, understory density and adult tree richness, but was not related to adult tree density or size class distributions. We also found a significant decrease in community-level leaf palatability traits (specific leaf area decreased and leaf thickness increased) with increasing chital habitat use. This community-level shift in leaf trait values was better explained by intra-specific variation in leaf traits across islands rather than changes in species composition. In summary, we show persistent long-term impacts of an introduced mammalian herbivore on understory tropical tree communities although there is little impact on adult tree communities. Our results also show that functional traits of species can be altered in response to novel herbivory, even at herbivore densities where there are no detectable impacts on adult forest structure or composition. Such altered functional traits may potentially alter ecosystem functioning in these forests even without changes in vegetation structure.</p>
Data from: Canopy cover and soil moisture influence forest understory plant responses to experimental summer drought
<p>Extreme droughts are globally increasing in frequency and severity. Most research on drought in forests focuses on the response of trees, while less is known about the impacts of drought on forest understory species and how these effects are moderated by the local environment.</p> <p>We assessed the impacts of a 45-day experimental summer drought on the performance of six boreal forest understory plants, using a transplant experiment with rainout shelters replicated across 25 sites. We recorded growth, vitality and reproduction immediately, two months, and one year after the simulated drought, and examined how differences in ambient soil moisture and canopy cover among sites influenced the effects of drought on the performance of each species.</p> <p>Drought negatively affected the growth and/or vitality of all species, but the effects were stronger and more persistent in the bryophytes than in the vascular plants. The two species associated with older forests, the moss <em>Hylocomiastrum umbratum</em> and the orchid <em>Goodyera repens</em>, suffered larger effects than the more generalist species included in the experiment. The drought reduced reproductive output in the moss <em>Hylocomium splendens </em>in the next growing season, but increased reproduction in the graminoid <em>Luzula pilosa</em>. Higher ambient soil moisture reduced some negative effects of drought on vascular plants. Both denser canopy cover and higher soil moisture alleviated drought effects on bryophytes, likely through alleviating cellular damage.</p> <p>Our experiment shows that boreal understory species can be adversely affected by drought and that effects might be stronger for bryophytes and species associated with older forests. Our results indicate that the effects of drought can vary over small spatial scales and that forest landscapes can be actively managed to alleviate drought effects on boreal forest biodiversity. For example, by managing the tree canopy and protecting hydrological networks.</p>
Evaluating plant lineage losses and gains in temperate forest understories - data and scripts
<p>## Raw data and code to accompany the research entitled "Plant lineage losses and gains in temperate forest understories" by Padullés Cubino et al. (2023). In preparation.</p> <p># There are two folders with (1) "data" and (2) "scripts".</p> <p># The "data" folder contains two additional folders ("Input" and "Output") with CSV files with all the data used for analysis and produced from them. These data files are accompanied by a "metadata.xlsx" file with data descriptions.</p> <p># The "scripts" folder contains three scripts for the analyses described in the manuscript:</p> <p># H1_H4_H5_H6_forestreplot.R -> tests for hypotheses 1, 4, and 6.<br> # H2_H3_forestreplot.R -> tests for hypotheses 2 and 3.<br> # node.mean_function_forestreplot.R -> R function necessary to test H2 (load before running the code in "H2_H3_forestreplot.R".</p> <p># If anything is unclear, please contact the corresponding author for clarification (padullesj@gmail.com).</p>
Data from: Successful recovery of native plants post-invasive removal in forest understories is driven by native community features
<p>Temperate forest understories hold the majority of the plant diversity present in these ecosystems and play an essential role in the recruitment and establishment of native trees. However, the long-term persistence of healthy forest understories is threatened by the impacts of invasive plants. As a result, a common practice is the removal of the agent of invasion. Despite this, we know little about the success of these practices and lack a comprehensive understanding of what intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape the recovery. In a multi-year field experiment, we investigated (Q1) whether native propagule availability drove native community recovery, (Q2) what the characteristics of successfully recovering communities were, and (Q3) under which environmental conditions recovery rates were faster. After initial removal of invasives, we seeded native species to manipulate assembly history and mimic restoration practices, we also implemented a repeated, vs. once, removal treatment, all in a full-factorial design. We collected data on plant species composition and abundance (i.e., species level percent cover) and on environmental conditions (i.e., light and soil water availability) in the three subsequent summers. Our results show that native community recovery rates were independent of seeding additions or frequency of invasive plant removal. The fastest rates of recovery were associated with high native species richness, native communities with higher values of specific leaf area (SLA), and low drought stress years. Our results suggest that restoration practices post-invasive plant removal should be tailored to enhance natural dispersal, or artificial addition if the resident community is species-poor, of native species with traits compatible with high resource availability, such as species with high SLA. In addition to the importance of the native community characteristics, our results underscore the need for assessing environmental conditions, favoring management practices during years of low drought stress to maximize native community recovery.</p>
Data from: Addition of nitrogen to canopy versus understory has different effects on leaf traits of understory plants in a subtropical evergreen broad–leaved forest
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Native herbivore browsing alters plant physical and chemical traits in a eucalypt forest understory
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Data from: Direct effects of a non-native invader erode native plant fitness in the forest understory
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Data from: The leaf economic and plant size spectra of European forest understory vegetation
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Data from: Successful recovery of native plants post-invasive removal in forest understories is driven by native community features
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Data from: Canopy cover and soil moisture influence forest understory plant responses to experimental summer drought
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Changes in forest structure drive temperature preferences of boreal understory plant communities
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