Recovery of Coastal Plain Forests from Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, USA, Fourteen Years after the Storm

摘要

Overstory species composition dynamics following a major disturbance integrates both the characteristics of individual species and competitive interactions. The purpose of this study was to monitor species composition shifts in several wetland and upland ecosystems receiving varying levels of damage from Hurricane Hugo that took place in 1989. Fifty permanent plots were established among four study sites in the Coastal Plain of South Carolina in 1994 and the trees and saplings re-inventoried in 1997,2000, and 2003. Over the 10-year study period, the species composition and dominance of most of the species did not change greatly; there was just the expected slow growth of basal area. On several of the sites, especially those more heavily damaged, there was a large increase in the density of species in the sapling size class that were not in the tree size class. Loblolly pine, hornbeam, redbay, deciduous holly, and wax myrtle are examples of such species.