Ecological resilience of physical plant–soil feedback to chronic deer herbivory: slow, partial but functional recovery

Ecological resilience to ungulate overbrowsing is an important issue in forest ecosystem. After chronic herbivory, the recovery rate of understory vegetation and its related functions can be slow even with decreasing grazing intensity; thus, detecting elasticity during alternative successional trajectories is fundamental to understanding state perturbations. In this context, we focused on physical plant–soil feedback (functional interactions between plant growths and soil physical conditions), and evaluated elasticity and recovery processes according to deer density. The effects of 40-year chronic herbivory by sika deer (average density 14.7 individuals km-2) on the recovery of understory plant communities and associated improvements in soil physical properties in headwater catchments were assessed. Using 8 years of catchment-wide exclusion (fenced) and reduction (only culled; average 4.3 individuals km-2) treatments, plot sampling was conducted in 2010 (before treatment) and 2018 (afte...