Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Spatial Aspects Of Tree Mortality Strongly Differ Between Young And Old-Growth Forests, Andrew J. Larson, James A. Lutz, Daniel C. Donato, James A. Freund, Mark E. Swanson, Janneke Hillrislambers, Douglas G. Sprugel, Jerry F. Franklin
Spatial Aspects Of Tree Mortality Strongly Differ Between Young And Old-Growth Forests, Andrew J. Larson, James A. Lutz, Daniel C. Donato, James A. Freund, Mark E. Swanson, Janneke Hillrislambers, Douglas G. Sprugel, Jerry F. Franklin
Forest Management Faculty Publications
Rates and spatial patterns of tree mortality are predicted to change during forest structural development. In young forests, mortality should be primarily density dependent due to competition for light, leading to an increasingly spatially uniform pattern of surviving trees. In contrast, mortality in old-growth forests should be primarily caused by contagious and spatially auto-correlated agents (e.g., insects, wind), causing spatial aggregation of surviving trees to increase through time. We tested these predictions by contrasting a three-decade record of tree mortality from replicated mapped permanent plots located in young (<60-year-old) and old-growth (>300-year-old) Abies amabilis forests. Trees in young forests died at a …60-year-old)>