Density-dependent demography in a Japanese temperate broad-leaved forest

Abstract

A method of detecting the density-dependent dynamics of a size-structured population is developed. The method is applied to a Japanese broad-leaved forest and the density-dependent and-independent projection matrix models are constructed based on the data of the forest. Then, the difference between the density-independent and density-dependent dynamics is compared in terms of several statistical quantities obtained from the matrices. Three kinds of sensitivity matrices are proposed for the density-dependent matrix model. At earlier stages, the sensitivity when the population density is low are higher than at the equilibrium. On the other hand, the inverse result is obtained at later stages. Moreover, the responses of the forest is analyzed to a decrease in survival rate and to an increase in the probability of gap formation. The decrease in survival rate leads to an extreme decrease in the density of the forest. However, the decrease in recruitment rate gives little effect on it because the effect of density-dependence in recruitment of new individuals is strong. The forest has the optimal rate of gap formation such that leads to the maximum population density.