The Role of Dispersal and Colonization in Determining Understory Species Distributions in Northeastern Forests

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Professor Beatty will make a series of measurements of upland deciduous forest floor species composition resulting from seed fall, overland movement of seeds, and other dispersion mechanisms. The measurements will be made in a variety of forest environments including old fields, floodplain forests, successional forests, and conifer forests. Local relief will also be considered. The project is designed to determine whether seed dispersal is the controlling factor in species colonization or whether environmental conditions are more important. The project will yield a deeper understanding of the determinants of vegetational change and succession, and contribute thereby to basic and applied biogeography. The findings will also contribute to our understanding of successional processes of a spatial nature among other phenomena at larger scales of analysis.