The Impact of Overstory Density on Reproduction Establishment in the Missouri Ozarks: Models for Simulating Regeneration Stochastically

Abstract

Predicting the effects of silvicultural choices on regeneration has been difficult with the tools available to foresters. In an effort to improve this, we developed a collection of reproduction establishment models based on stand development hypotheses and parameterized with empirical data for several species in the Missouri Ozarks. These models estimate third-year abundance parameters for established reproduction that originated from either small advance reproduction or new germination. The influence of predisturbance stand conditions was summarized by a simple presence/absence inventory of advance reproduction for each species. The influence of postdisturbance stand conditions was summarized by user-provided estimates of residual overstory density and presence/absence of a residual seed source for each species. The estimated abundance parameters can be used deterministically or with stochastic number generators to simulate regeneration after a variety of harvest-based silvicultural manipulations. This approach has the potential to increase the efficacy of regeneration modeling by reducing the inventory effort typically required and increasing compatibly for species not strongly reliant on advance reproduction.