Damage to artificial seedlings across a disturbed Afromontane forest landscape

Seedling mortality is an important demographic bottleneck for forest regeneration, yet the factors influencing recruitment are often poorly characterised across space and time. In African highlands, where extensive patches of previously disturbed forests remain in persistent shrub-dominated states, patterns of damage to seedlings have not been examined in detail. We used artificial seedlings to determine how (non-herbivory related) damage varies across a fragmented forest landscape in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. A total of 848 artificial seedlings were established in 106 plots, each with 8 seedlings, across a gradient of environmental factors, including habitat type, topographic position, distance to water, and distance to human activity. We divided damage into that due to vertebrates, plant debris, and unknown agents. From our 16,960 monthly stem assessments, 1,289 damage events were recorded. The mean “seedling” damage per year (± 1 SE) was 59.5 ± 2.3%. Damage was s...