Local competition in a naturally established jack pine stand

Abstract

The spatial pattern of 1375 jack pine individuals (459 live, 257 standing dead, and 659 stumps) in a pure, even-aged, naturally established stand was mapped. Three maps corresponding to different stages of stand development were recognized: live + dead (initial pattern, n = 1375), live (following self-thinning, n = 459), and live + standing dead (survivors plus most recent mortality, n = 716). The Dirichlet-Thiessen tessellations of these maps indicated that the distribution of tile areas (area potentially available) becomes increasingly equitable over time. A significant positive correlation between diameter at breast height of surviving trees and their area potentially available was found for each map; this correlation was highest for the live tessellation. In the live + dead and live + standing dead tessellations, the mean tile area of dead trees was significandy smaller than that of survivors. The spatial pattern of diameter at breast height values of survivors revealed a positive autocorrelation: larger trees tend to have large neighbours and smaller trees have small ones. These results suggest a model of differential mortality in which the smaller individuals in a stand, particularly those surrounded by larger individuals, are most likely to die over a given time interval.