Forest understory vegetation study: current status and future trends

Deng, Jiaojiao; Fang, Shuai; Fang, Xiang-Min; Jin, Yang; Kuang, Yuanwen; Lin, Fangmei; Liu, Jiaqing; Jin, Ma; Nie, Yonggang; Ouyang, Shengnan; Ren, Jing; Tie, Liehua; Tang, Songbo; Tan, Xiangping; Wang, Xugao; Fan, Zusen; Wang, Qingwei; Wang, Hang; Liu, Chenggang

doi:10.48130/fr-2023-0006

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 297 publications

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“…Understory vegetation accounts for a large proportion of the species diversity of forest ecosystems (Deng et al, 2023a) and is very crucial to maintaining community stability and regulating the structure and function of the forest ecosystem (Nilsson and Wardle, 2005;Bartels and Chen, 2013;Rodriguez-Rodriguez et al, 2023). The tree layer dominates the consumption of space, light (Bartels and Chen, 2010), water, and soil nutrients (Rybar et al, 2023) and has strong space heterogeneity (Yu et al, 2022), which strongly influences the composition and distribution of understory vegetation (Kumar et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understory removal is a sustainable forest management practice followed worldwide for plantations and natural forests (Povak et al, 2008) to decrease fire hazards (Jimenez et al, 2015) and promote the growth of target trees (Yildiz et al, 2011). Therefore, understory removal has stimulated much exploration about its effectiveness, producing some controversial results (Deng et al, 2023a). Understory removal can alter the characteristics of the understory environment, for example, soil water and nutrient availability (Zhao et al, 2011;Deng et al, 2023b), microbial community (Deng et al, 2023b) and light conditions (Kume et al, 2003), as well as limiting the build-up of litter (Navarro et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Short-term effects of understory removal on understory diversity and biomass of temperate forests in northeast China

Zhang,

Yuan,

Deng

et al. 2024

Front. For. Glob. Change

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IntroductionUnderstory removal is a traditional practice in forest management to reduce fire risk and promote seedling regeneration. However, its effect on understory diversity, biomass and soil nutrients in temperate forest ecosystems is less known, which limits our assessment of the effectiveness of understory vegetation management.MethodsWe quantified the composition of the understory species, their diversity, and the biomass of the understory and factors driving changes in these parameters in primary mixed broad-leaved Pinus koraiensis forest (BKF), secondary Betula platyphylla forest (BF), and Larix gmelinii plantation (LF) in northeast China after a 5-year understory removal.ResultsAfter understory removal, the number of shrub and herb species in BKF and LF decreased, while the number of shrub species in BF increased significantly and that of herb species decreased; the species with strong light preference, Equisetum hyemale, Impatiens noli-tangere, and Filipendula Palmata, were dominant in the herb layer of the three forest types; Shannon–Wiener diversity, Pielou evenness, and Simpson diversity of the herb layer in LF increased significantly (P < 0.05), while those of the shrub and herb layers in BF and LF showed no significant changes (P > 0.05). The total understory biomass of understory of BKF and LF decreased by 0.94 t·hm−2 and 1.32 t·hm−2, respectively, while that of BF increased by 1.31 t·hm−2; soil NH4+-N and total phosphorus (TP) were the key factors regulating understory vegetation diversity and biomass, respectively.ConclusionThese results suggest that understory removal is a beneficial management strategy for increasing shrub biomass and diversity in secondary forests, while it should be avoided in primary forests and plantations to prevent the reduction of understory plant diversity and soil nutrient loss.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term effects of understory removal on understory diversity and biomass of temperate forests in northeast China

Zhang,

Yuan,

Deng

et al. 2024

Front. For. Glob. Change

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“…Close-to-nature management is a cultivation strategy that aims to convert pure plantation forests into near-natural forest ecosystems through various management measures, including the introduction of tree species, structural adjustment, promotion of natural regeneration, and protection of understory plant diversity ( O’Hara, 2016 ; Schütz et al., 2016 ). These approaches have been shown to improve species diversity ( Stokes et al., 2021 ), stand structure ( Fang et al., 2021 ; Feng et al., 2022 ), carbon storage ( Deng et al., 2023 ), and community succession ( Chai and Tan, 2020 ). Under-canopy afforestation, which combines thinning and understory replanting of seedlings or saplings, is an effective method for transforming pure plantations into uneven-aged mixed forests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under-canopy afforestation after 10 years: assessing the potential of converting monoculture plantations into mixed stands

Gao,

Zhang,

et al. 2024

Front. Plant Sci.

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Under-canopy afforestation using different tree species is a key approach in close-to-nature management to improve the structural and functional stability of plantation forests. However, current research on understory afforestation mainly focuses on the seedling stage, with limited attention to saplings or young trees. In this study, we evaluated the growth characteristics and leaf traits of 14-year-old Pinus sylvestris var. Mongolica trees under four different upper forest density (UFD) treatments: 0 trees/hm2 (canopy openness 100%, CK), 150 trees/hm2 (canopy openness 51.9%, T1), 225 trees/hm2 (canopy openness 43.2%, T2), and 300 trees/hm2 (canopy openness 28.4%, T3). We found that the survival rate of P. sylvestris in the T3 was significantly lower than in the other treatments, with a decrease of 30.2%, 18.3%, and 19.5% compared to CK, T1, and T2, respectively. The growth of P. sylvestris in the T1 treatment exhibited superior performance. Specifically, T1 showed a significant increase of 18.8%, 5.5%, and 24.1% in tree height, diameter at breast height, and crown width, respectively, compared to the CK. The mean trunk biomass ratio in the understory was significantly higher than that in full light by 15.4%, whereas the mean leaf biomass ratio was significantly lower by 12.3%. Understory P. sylvestris trees tended to allocate more biomass to the trunk at the expense of decreasing leaf biomass, which would facilitate height growth to escape the shading environment, although the promotion was relatively limited. Leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, leaf thickness, mesophyll tissue thickness, epidermis thickness, and leaf carbon content were the highest in the CK and tended to decrease with increasing UFD, indicating that a high-light environment favored leaf growth and enhanced carbon accumulation. In summary, young P. sylvestris trees adapted to moderate shading conditions created by the upper canopy, and the T1 treatment was optimal for the growth of understory P. sylvestris. This study provides insights into different adaptive strategies of young P. sylvestris trees to changes in light environment, providing practical evidence for under-canopy afforestation using light-demanding trees during pure plantation transformation.

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“…Therefore, forest can be seen as one of the most effective land use types to mitigate soil losses (Pimentel and Burgess, 2013). However, disturbance of forest vegetation may lead to significant punctual (Gall et al, 2022;Geißler et al, 2010) and areal (Safari et al, 2016;Seitz et al, 2016;Zemke et al, 2016) erosion events that can by far exceed sustainable erosion rates (Deng et al 2023). Important examples have been described globally such as in Hungary (Misik and Kárász, 2022) and China (Yao et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short communication: Concentrated impacts by tree canopy drips: hotspots of soil erosion in forests

Katayama

Nanko

Jeong

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. The degradation of ground vegetation cover caused by large grazing herbivores frequently results in enhanced erosion rates in forest ecosystems. Splash erosion can be caused by drop impacts with high throughfall kinetic energy (TKE) from the canopy of the trees. Notably bigger canopy drips from structurally-mediated woody surface points appear to induce even higher TKE and generate concentrated impact locations causing severe focus points of soil erosion. However, TKE at these locations has rarely been reported. This study investigated the intensity of TKE at a concentrated impact location and compared it to general TKE locations under the canopy and freefall kinetic energy (FKE) outside the forest. We measured precipitation, TKE and FKE using splash cups at seven locations under Japanese beech trees and five locations outside the forest in the leafless and leafed seasons in a deciduous broadleaved forest of Japan, respectively. TKE at the concentrated impact location was 15.2 and 49.7 times higher than that at general locations under beech and FKE, respectively. This study confirmed that canopy drip from woody surfaces can be a hotspot of soil erosion in temperate forest ecosystems. Throughfall precipitation at the concentrated impact location was 11.4 and 8.1 times higher than that at general locations and freefall, respectively. TKE per 1 mm precipitation (unit TKE) at the concentrated impact location (39.2 ± 23.7 J m-2 mm-1) was much higher than that at general locations (22.0 ± 12.7 J m-2 mm-1) and unit FKE (4.5 ± 3.5 J m-2 mm-1). Unit TKE in the leafless season was significantly lower than in the leafed season because of fewer redistribution of canopy drips induced only by woody tissue. Nevertheless, unit TKE at the concentrated impact location in the leafless season (36.4 J m-2 mm-1) was still higher than at general locations in the leafed season. These results show that potentially high rates of sediment detachment can be induced by not only throughfall precipitation, but also larger throughfall drop size distributions at concentrated impact locations, even in the leafless season.

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Forest understory vegetation study: current status and future trends

Cited by 15 publications

References 297 publications

Short-term effects of understory removal on understory diversity and biomass of temperate forests in northeast China

Short-term effects of understory removal on understory diversity and biomass of temperate forests in northeast China

Under-canopy afforestation after 10 years: assessing the potential of converting monoculture plantations into mixed stands

Short communication: Concentrated impacts by tree canopy drips: hotspots of soil erosion in forests

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