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- Info
Linking forest edge structure to edge function: mediation of herbivore damage
| Author: |
Cadenasso, M.L.; Pickett, S.T.A. |
| Date: |
2000 |
| Periodical: |
Journal of Ecology |
| Abstract: |
In the north-eastern United States, as elsewhere, fragmentation of landscape structure has increased both the prominence of forest edges and the proportion of forest area that lies close to an edge. While processes characteristic of the forest interior, such as tree regeneration, plant-plant interactions and plant-animal interactions, still occur in forest patches, their dynamics may be influenced by factors originating from outside the patch boundary (Saunders et al. 1991; Angelstam 1992). The impact of exogenous factors on internal forest dynamics may depend on the permeability of the edge to those factors (Wiens et al. 1985; Stamps et al. 1987; Forman & Moore 1992), and this study represents the first experimental test of whether the flux of one such factor, tree seedling herbivores, is indeed affected by the structure of the forest edge. |
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