Assembling the forest herb community after abandonment from agriculture: long-term successional dynamics differ with land-use history

1. Cultivation and pasturing, both historically common forms of agriculture in eastern North America, differ in their long-term environmental legacies. We ask whether successional re-assembly of the forest herb community differs between second-growth stands with contrasting agricultural histories. We predicted that herb communities would diverge through a process of environmental filtering as colonist species responded to the agricultural histories of individual sites and to underlying edaphic gradients.
2. Thirty-five second-growth stands were grouped into a replicated chronosequence of formerly cultivated and pastured sites spanning 80 years after canopy closure. Five long-established stands without signs of agricultural history were included as controls. Herbaceous vegetation and soil and environmental variables were recorded at each site.
3. Forest herb species accumulated through the chronosequence. Community composition changed through successional time, transitioning from o...