Diversity & Disturbance
Controlled burn in Vinton Experimental Forest of Ohio. Fire, in combination with canopy gaps or moderate browsing can promote plant diversity.
Forest diversity and dynamics are often driven by the combined effects of disturbances including fire, wind, herbivory, and harvesting. My research demonstrates interactions critically regulate forest renewal is ways that are sometimes unexpected and challenge long-held assumptions.
For example, in the Central Appalachians, only when fire, deer browsing, and canopy gaps are studied together do we see their full influence on understory recovery, seed bank dynamics, and tree regeneration. Similarly, in post-windthrow landscapes, our work shows that the compound disturbance of salvage logging following wind disturbance can enhance tree species coexistence.
Layne Strickler and Alex Royo collecting data within a fence built in wind-disturbed area that was salvage logged. In Eastern Deciduous Forests, post-windthrow salvaging can promote species diversity
Representative publications
Reed, S. P., Royo, A. A., Carson, W. P., Olmsted, C. F., Frelich, L. E., & Reich, P. B. (2025). Multiple disturbances, multiple legacies: Fire, canopy gaps and deer jointly change the forest seed bank. Journal of Ecology, 113, 353–370. PDF
Royo, A. A., Carson, W. P., Collins, R., Adams, M. B., & Kirschbaum, C. (2010). Pervasive interactions between keystone ungulates and historical disturbance regimes promote temperate forest herbaceous diversity. Ecology, 91, 93–105. PDF