Vegetation Composition and Relation to Environment in an Allegheny Hardwoods Forest

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The relation of vegetation composition and species distribution to microtopography and canopy density was studied in a 2nd-growth hardwood stand within the Kane Experimental Forest in western Pennsylvania. Canopy trees were censused by the point-centered quarter method and microtopography was noted for each tree recorded. Microtopography and percent cover of herbs in May and July were determined using a 0.5 .times. 1 m quadrat on a grid of 93 sampling points. Percent open sky above each point was assessed with a spherical densiometer. The dominant canopy species, Acer saccharum and Prunus serotina, and dominant herb layer species, Erythronium americanum and P. serotina seedlings, were ubiquitous in the stand; co-occuring species were less widely represented. While the distributions of canopy dominants Acer and Prunus were affected by microtopographic variations, herb cover was not. Herb cover values were also unaffected by variation in canopy openness from 1.20-5.28%.