Objective

Longleaf pine communities, which once stretched from Virginia to Texas, are one of the most diverse ecosystems outside of the tropics. While less than 3% of historical longleaf pine ecosystems remain, much of the southeastern United States has the potential for recovery. Recovery of longleaf pine understory plant communities can be partially achieved by changing site conditions such as burning frequency and the density of overstory trees. However, ecological mechanisms such as dispersal limitation, competition, and consumer effects also influence recovery. Furthermore, landscape effects such as connectivity may interact with site conditions and ecological mechanisms to influence the outcome of recovery efforts. Determining the relative importance of site conditions and ecological mechanisms and how they interact with landscape effects across spatial and temporal scales is imperative for directing recovery efforts of longleaf pine understory communities.

The objective of this project is to provide comprehensive insight into the relative importance of how site conditions and ecological mechanisms affect the potential for recovery of longleaf pine savanna understory plant communities in the southeastern United States by (1) defining ecological reference models that explicitly consider site conditions and landscape effects, (2) developing a means of assessing how degraded stands differ from reference stands, (3) determining which recovery strategies will be effective, and (4) devising a widely applicable method for quantifying recovery progress.