Apparent forest succession understories are often just suppressed trees as old as the canopy.
Evidence
A possible problem with past studies of succession emphasized by our age-structure work is that much of what appears visually to be succession is really just suppression. The “sapling” understories of many stands were nearly as old as the overstory ! This is particularly t’rue of black spruce beneath jack pine. Black spruce often seeds-in well following fire, but regeneration may come in for several years. Spruce seedlings also grow more slowly than the pines in their first few years. Once in a subcanopy position, such trees may survive more than a century in a suppressed condition. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 410
Categorization
- XREF: Directly refines the reader’s own age-structure method claims from ch1 — a caution about reading landscape structure as evidence. — connects to: Community vegetation maps remain unlinked to exact stand ages — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 340; Predicted jack pine succession to other types never fully completes even after centuries. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 342
- DEFINE: Clarifies suppression as distinct from true succession, a key disturbance-ecology concept.