| Sustainability has become a focus for forest management, particularly in the South, where harvest intensity has increased in recent years. Considerable interest has centered on the effects of high intensity silvicultural practices on ecological processes, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat. To better understand these effects, we conducted a comparative study of second and third rotation plant communities and the effects of silvicultural practices on succession, biodiversity and stand structure in a loblolly pine plantation in the Piedmont of North Carolina.; Results indicated that diversity increased from the second to the third rotation, primarily because vegetation control promoted disturbance-responsive species. In addition, small numbers of woodland herbs were recruited in the third rotation across all treatments. Prior to canopy closure, intensive site preparation influenced species composition and cover, but treatments converged once the canopy closed. Despite the lack of long-term treatment effects on plant species composition and cover, we found that vegetation control significantly affected stand structure at all height strata, prevented the development of a midstory, and promoted the persistence of an herbaceous layer.; Our results indicate that vegetation control permitted the persistence of early successional species, increasing overall diversity from the second to the third rotation. We found evidence that the stand is evolving from its agricultural legacy to a forest through the recruitment of several late successional herbaceous species. Although intensive silvicultural practices play an important early role in determining species cover and composition, and continue to affect forest stand structure after twenty years, they apparently do not disrupt succession long term. Interestingly, differences in species composition due to soil variation across the study site were seen through both rotations, while treatment differences diminished rather quickly. Thus we find that intensive management in a secondary forest stand has little long-term impact on succession and plant species composition, but may have important ramifications for wildlife due to the alteration of stand structure. |
