Successions in forest coenoses after windfall: Models of tree competition

Based on the concept of competition for resources, the distribution of trees upon reforestation in windfall areas is studied. As a theoretical model for competition, a Zipf-Pareto model of ranking the distribution of resources is used. Analysis shows that the processes resulting from competitive interactions between the trees of different species proceed slowly in a windfall area where coniferous species get replaced by deciduous ones. In the territory where deciduous species initially dominated, competitive interactions between trees of different species turn out to be formed almost immediately upon natural reforestation after the windfall. By the time the ratio of species stabilizes and becomes a steady state, the ranks of individual species also stabilize. This result is obtained on the basis of a quantitative assessment of the change in leadership between competing species in time using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.