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Home → Publications → Forest Nursery Notes → 2008 Winter Forest Nursery Notes → 2008 Winter Forest Nursery Notes - New Nursery Literature → Effects of Vegetation Removal on Native Understory Recovery in an Exotic-Rich Urban Forest

Effects of Vegetation Removal on Native Understory Recovery in an Exotic-Rich Urban Forest

Vidra, R. L., Shear, T. H., and Stucky, J. M. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 134(3):410-419. 2007.

In the summer of 2001, we initiated a removal experiment with three treatments. In the "repeated removal" treatment, all understory vegetation was initially removed by clipping and new exotic seedlings were repeatedly removed every 2 weeks throughout the study period. The "initial removal" treatment involved a one-time understory vegetation removal with no further weeding. Control plots had no intervention throughout the study period. We conducted vegetation surveys of the plots prior to treatment initiation and in April and August of 2002 and 2003. With a non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordination, we were able to discern differences in species composition between the repeated removal treatment and the other two treatments. However, using repeated measures ANOVA. we found no significant differences in native species richness, cover, and abundance among treatments during most sampling periods. We also used a seedbank study to determine that while some early successional species were present, no native shrubs and few native trees emerged from the seedbank.


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Author(s): R. L. Vidra, Theodore H. Shear, J. M. Stucky

Section: Weed Control