Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Open Access Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Forest Ecology and Management (MS)
Administrative Home Department
College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
Advisor 1
Julia I. Burton
Committee Member 1
Lee E. Frelich
Committee Member 2
Christopher R. Webster
Abstract
Neighborhood effects are processes mediated by canopy trees that influence the ability of a species to replace itself following canopy mortality. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) and eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.) are the dominant trees in old-growth northern hardwood forests of Upper Michigan and have been observed to form monodominant patches in the region. Few studies have independently evaluated the demographic and ecological mechanisms that lead to the compositional stability of hemlock and sugar maple patch development. Tree demography data from eight long-term 0.5 ha old-growth plots in Upper Michigan indicate neighborhood effects are playing a role in regeneration patterns and growth of sugar maple and hemlock. Evidence of conspecific positive and heterospecific negative neighborhood effects were observed through understory overstory spatial relationships, neighborhood sapling presence models, and stem growth analyses. Patterns of winter deer presence indicate disruptions in hemlock understory composition at lower elevation plots.
Recommended Citation
Milenkowic, Adam Z., "THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS IN MAINTAINING THE HARDWOOD-HEMLOCK MOSAIC", Open Access Master's Thesis, Michigan Technological University, 2024.
Included in
Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences Commons
