How Do You Rate This Publication?       

Title:	Influences of Herbivory and Canopy Opening Size on Forest Regeneration in a Southern Bottomland Hardwood Forest
Author(s):	Castleberry, Steven B.; Ford, W. Mark; Miller, Carl V.; Smith, Winston P.
Date:	2000
Source:	Forest Ecology and Management 131 (2000) 57-64
Description:	We examined the effects of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) browsing and canopy opening size on relative abundance and diversity of woody and herbaceous regeneration in various sized forest openings in a southern, bottomland hardwood forest over three growing seasons (1995-1997). We created 36 canopy openings (gaps), ranging from 7 to 40m in radius, by group selection timber harvest in December 1994. Fenced exclosures were constructed in the center of each gap and vegetation was sampled monthly from April to September. Plant species richness, diversity, evenness, relative abundance, and a browsing index were calculated for each gap size and for each exclosure type. Herbaceous richness, diversity, or evenness did not differ among exclosure types in any year of the study. Browsing index was higher in the controls in 1996 and 1997. Browsing index for woody species was highest in the controls in 1995 and 1997. Relative abundance of herbaceous species was highest in the 29 m gap size. in 1997. Richness and diversity of woody species were lowest in the 29m gap sire in 1995 and 1996. Overall browsing rates on both woody and herbaceous vegetation were low throughout all the 3 years of the study. Low browsing rates reflect seasonal changes in habitat use by deer. Because of the low rates of browsing, vegetative differences among exclosure treatments and gap sizes likely are not attributable to deer herbivory. Other factors, such as soil disturbance, may have influenced the initial vegetative response more than herbivory or gap size.
	View and Print this Publication (161 KB)
Pristine Version:	An uncaptured or "pristine" version of this publication is available. It has not been subjected to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and therefore does not have any errors in the text. However it is a larger file size and some people may experience long download times. The "pristine" version of this publication is available here: View and Print the PRISTINE copy of this Publication (1.1 MB)
Publication Notes:	We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information. This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain. Our on-line publications are scanned and captured using Adobe Acrobat. During the capture process some typographical errors may occur. Please contact the SRS Webmaster, srswebmaster@fs.fed.us if you notice any errors which make this publication unuseable.
	Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility