Seedling Recruitment in Forests: Calibrating Models to Predict Patterns of Tree Seedling Dispersion

Recruitment, the addition of new individuals into a community, is an important factor that can substantially affect community composition and dynamics. We present a method for calibrating spatial models of plant recruitment that does not require identifying the specific parent of each recruit. This method calibrates seedling recruitment functions by comparing tree seedling distributions with adult distributions via a maximum likelihood analysis. The models obtained from this method can then be used to predict the spatial distributions of seedlings from adult distributions. We calibrated recruitment functions for 10 tree species characteristics of transition oak—northern hardwood forests. Significant differences were found in recruit abundances and spatial distributions. Predicted seedling recruitment limitation for test stands varied substantially between species, with little recruitment limitation for some species and strong recruitment limitation for others. Recruitment was limited due to low overall recruit production or to restricted recruit dispersion. When these seedlings recruitment parameters were incorporated into a spatial, individual—based model of forest dynamics, called SORTIE, alterations of recruitment parameters produced substantial changes in species abundance, providing additional support for the potential importance of seedling recruitment processes in community structure and dynamics.