Effects of natural and artificial disturbance on landscape and forest structure in Tiantong National Forest Park,East China

This paper aims to understand the ecological effects of disturbance on broadleaved evergreen forest in East China. We used a manipulative field experiment approximating the common natural and artificial disturbance types in this area to investigate the community physiognomy, floristic composition, and 5-year recovery dynamics of the post-disturbance forest community. The results indicated that the landscape and forest structure have degraded into shrub communities, structure-damaged evergreen broadleaved communities, and so on. The post-disturbance communities presented different means of plant recruitment and vegetation recovery patterns at an early successional stage. The recovery of disturbed forests primarily depended on external seed sources and re-sprouting from stumps, rather than on soil seed banks, as few buried seeds were found. Re-sprouting thus appears to be key in allowing rapid vegetation recovery in evergreen broadleaved forest. Disturbances seem to be one of the most important factors that can contribute to regional species coexistence across temporal and spatial scales in evergreen broadleaved forests.