Species Diversity in Planted Pine and Natural Hardwoods 24 years After Sharing and Chipping on the Cumberland Plateau, TN

Abstract

Plant species richness in 24 year-old planted lobiolly pine (Pinus taeda L.), eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.), yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.), naturally regenerated hardwoods, and mature hardwoods was compared using the North Carolina Vegetation Survey protocol. Comparisons were made in plots established after shearing and on-site chipping of a low quality hardwood stand on the Cumberland Plateau near Sewanee, TN in 1976. In 3 of the 6 plots representing each species, stems over 1.3 meters tall were injected with herbicide during the winter after harvest. Six years after planting, half of each eastern white pine plot was cleaned by manually or chemically removing only those trees essential to release the overtopped white pines. Three additional plots were installed in 2000 in the surrounding mature forest. Data collected in 2000 included species presence and cover class for a log₁₀ series of nested square subquadrats (0.01, 0.1, 1.0, 10, and 100 square meters) within a 900 square meter quadrat for each of the 0.4 hectare plots. A total of 159 plant species (excluding grasses) were encountered within the twenty-seven 900 square meter plots. Sixty-three were found in all 5 stand types. Thirty-nine were found in only one stand type, with the largest number (10) found in loblolly pine and yellow-poplar. Plant species richness beneath the loblolly pine was not significantly different from planted yellow-poplar, natural regeneration, or the surrounding older hardwood forest. Eastern white pine, however, exhibited reduced plant richness relative to the other stand types. The effects of tree injection on plant richness varied with stand type and plant form. While woody plant species declined slightly in all plot types, herbaceous species tended to decline in pine plots and increase in the hardwood plots. The effects of successive competition treatments on plant species richness in eastern white pine were cumulative (average 4.5 species per treatment).

Citation

Kuers, Karen. 2002. Species Diversity in Planted Pine and Natural Hardwoods 24 years After Sharing and Chipping on the Cumberland Plateau, TN. In: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-48. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pg. 599-604