Assessing the relationships between stand development and understory vegetation using a 420-year chronosequence

The large-scale conversion of old forests to tree plantations has made it increasingly important to understand how understory vegetation responds to such landscape changes. For instance, in some forest types a reduction in understory richness and cover is thought to result from the development of canopy closure in plantations, although there is a paucity of empirical data demonstrating this relationship. We used a 420-year forest chronosequence as a case study to assess the relationship between stand age, tree canopy cover and understory vascular plant richness and composition in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon. The chronosequence consisted of six young managed (age 7–44) and nine older unmanaged (age 90–427) stands. All stands were similar in underlying geology, slope, elevation, and aspect. We found a non-linear relationship between stand age and richness, in which richness was highest in the youngest stands, reached a low in mid-aged stands (∼55 years), then increased in the oldest stands. We also found that percent tree canopy cover was correlated with total understory cover, richness, diversity, and species composition. In general, young stands were characterized by high shrub and graminoid cover and old stands were characterized by an abundant herb layer. Our work suggests that a major component of our study landscape is currently entering the forest stage (canopy closure) characterized by low levels of vascular plant species richness and cover. We use our results to discuss the potential effects of future forest management on understory plants.