Population and community development and structure

At mid-latitudes the sun never rises to the near-vertical position in the sky as it does in the tropics. In winter, when the sun appears particularly close to the horizon throughout the short period of daylight, its direct radiant energy impinges most on slopes facing the Equator—southward in the Northern Hemisphere, northward in the Southern Hemisphere. In deciduous forest regions, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere where the trees are without leaves in winter, direct sunlight bathes the forest floor. The ground surface and the vegetation on southern slopes are quickly warmed, paradoxically creating a more stressful environment for plants than exists on the shadier, cooler northern slopes. The stress is due to more extreme temperature fluctuations than the southern slope sustains, which affects the speed at which the plant tissues, frozen during the cold night, are thawed. On the southern slope the thawing is much more rapid, which is more damaging than the gradual thaw that the vegetation on the northern slopes experiences. As a result, herbaceous plants of the forest floor that retain green leaves throughout winter, such as Hepatica, Hydrophyllum, and Tiarella in eastern North America, are more common on northern slopes, while sunnier slopes become bare and brown during the winter months.

As days lengthen and temperatures warm in spring, new, green photosynthetic shoots develop rapidly from buds that formed and food reserves that were laid down in storage tissues during the previous growing season. Annuals growing from seed are rare. The most rapid development of all typically occurs in the herbaceous plants of the forest floor. These plants must take immediate advantage of the spring warmth and sunlight before the new tree foliage casts its heavy shade over the ground, drastically reducing available light energy and slowing the rate of photosynthesis. Many plants of the forest floor have underground energy-storing organs such as bulbs, corms, or fleshy rhizomes that allow them to grow rapidly and strongly in spring to gain maximum advantage from the short, warm, shade-free period. They frequently also produce strong, pointed shoots that are able to emerge above the thick layer of dead leaves that dropped from the trees of the canopy the previous autumn. Thus, the ground of temperate deciduous forests in spring typically is covered by a green carpet of foliage that often includes dramatic displays of colourful flowers before the buds on the trees above have opened. Later, after the leaves of the tree canopy have regrown, the ground cover declines. Typical low-growing plants in North American deciduous forests include species of Cypripedium, Erythronium, Hydrophyllum, Trillium, and Viola. In Europe bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), and wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa), among many other herbaceous species, provide similarly spectacular spring flower displays. A vegetation profile of a typical temperate deciduous forest is shown in Figure 2.

In autumn the delicate leaves of the deciduous trees senesce and start to die. As this happens, they lose their green colour and turn various shades of brown, yellow, and red. Dramatic displays are created, becoming significant tourist attractions in the areas in which the colours are brightest—i.e., eastern North America and western Asia. A weak layer of tissue called the abscission layer develops at the base of each leaf stalk, and at this point the stalk breaks and the leaf is shed. The massive leaf drop that ensues during autumn has earned the season its alternate designation, fall.

As in other forests, the composition of the temperate deciduous forest is commonly determined by the influence of disturbances—natural as well as human—on tree regeneration. For instance, in eastern North America, the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) produces seeds that can remain dormant in the soil for up to seven years. When they germinate, subsequent establishment of the quick-growing saplings is most successful on bare mineral soil in full light. Stands of this species therefore tend to be of the same age and act as markers of the time at which a catastrophe destroyed the former tree cover, baring the ground. Beech that occur in the same region are shade-tolerant and occupy places not subject to catastrophe, regenerating beneath undamaged tree canopy.

There are still a few temperate forests that have been disturbed little by human activities, and the interrelationships between the vegetation and the large animals are of interest. A rare, relatively intact area of deciduous forest that contains some evergreen conifers is found in Poland. The most common trees include linden (species of Tilia), oak (Quercus robur), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), maple (Acer platanoides), and spruce (Picea abies). Until 1923 large areas were dominated by linden, but most tree regeneration at that time was by spruce, hornbeam, and maple. By 1973 these latter species had become common as canopy trees, and lindens began regenerating freely, as they had not at the earlier time. Such changes result in part from the varying regeneration requirements of the trees. Most successful regeneration takes place where gaps of light reach the forest floor. Competition between saplings of different species is intense and has different outcomes depending in part on soil and light intensities and to a large degree on the effects of mammals. Rooting by wild pigs, although it destroys many small plants, creates suitable conditions for seedling establishment. Saplings are subject to browsing by deer, which also feed on herbaceous plants that compete with tree seedlings. European bison similarly eat foliage and, in addition, can debark trees with their horns. The combined variable influences of these and other animals interact to produce a mosaic forest of different tree ages and composition, with longer-term changes resulting from population fluctuations due, in part, to human impact.

Most temperate forests, where they still survive at all, have been so exploited and disturbed by human influences that their natural condition is difficult to discern. However, some areas outside the old agricultural regions of Asia and Europe have sustained much less human disturbance, making it possible to define natural disturbances responsible for some variations. For example, temperate broad-leaved forests in Chile have been shown to vary in structure and composition according to their history of natural catastrophe in the form of earthquake-induced landslides; similar relationships between ecosystem alteration and natural disturbances have been demonstrated in New Zealand with volcanic eruption and in Tasmania with wildfire. In all these regions, sites undisturbed for many centuries have forests dominated by shady, highly competitive species of Nothofagus, often with few seedlings of any kind beneath the large, old trees. However, in the wake of natural catastrophe, other trees can invade the sites, and only gradually does Nothofagus reestablish itself and slowly resume dominance during subsequent tree generations. Therefore, in areas that have suffered many instances of disturbance, there exists today a variety of forest types. Comparable variations resulting from storm damage and wildfire occurrence have been recognized in North American deciduous forests.