Changes in forest structure, species diversity and spatial pattern following hurricane disturbance in a Piedmont North Carolina forest, USA

Abstract

Large hurricanes have profound impacts on temperate forests, but owing to their infrequent nature these effects have rarely been examined in detail. In 1996, Hurricane Fran significantly damaged many long-term tree census plots in the Duke Forest on the North Carolina Piedmont, thereby providing an exceptional opportunity to examine pre-and post-hurricane forest compositional trajectories. Our goal was to examine immediate, short-term (0-4 years) and longer term (;5 year) hurricane-induced structural, spatial and compositional changes in the tree population (stem d.b.h > 1 cm) in the context of our detailed, long-term knowledge of the dynamics of these forests.