In May-June 2018 we quantified the abundance of stems in the seedling
bank (sensu Marks and Gardescu, 1998) for larger forest plots that
contained seedling plots (90 CAL and 92 REF). Specifically, we
positioned a 20 m long by 2-m wide transect (i.e. area = 40 m2) on the
diagonal from the NW plot corner and inventoried all woody tree stems
>5 cm tall and <2 cm DBH. Since the seedling bank is defined as
a persistent understory, we excluded germinants from the 2018 census
because of the low survivorship of these first-year stems (Cleavitt et
al. 2008, Cleavitt et al. 2011). All stems were tallied by species,
origin (seedling, sprout, unknown) and size class. The five size
classes were: 1) 5.0 – 14.9 cm tall; 2) 15.0 –29.9 cm; 3) 30.0 – 49.9
cm; 4) 50.0 – 99.9 cm; and 5) ≥ 1 m tall and < 2 cm in DBH.
References
Cleavitt, N. L., Fahey, T. J., & Battles, J. J. (2011).
Regeneration ecology of sugar maple (Acersaccharum): seedling survival
in relation to nutrition, site factors, and damage by insects and
pathogens. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 41(2), 235-244.
Cleavitt, N. L., Fairbairn, M., & Fahey, T. J. (2008). Growth and
survivorship of American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) seedlings in
a northern hardwood forest following a mast event. Journal of the
Torrey Botanical Society, 135(3), 328-345.
Marks, P. L., & Gardescu, S. (1998). A case study of sugar maple
(Acer saccharum) as a forestseedling bank species. Journal of the
Torrey Botanical Society, 125, 287–296.