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...有蹄类过度啃食下的生态恢复力（ecological resilience）是森林生态系统中的重要研究议题。在长期植食干扰后，即便放牧强度降低，林下植被及其相关生态功能的恢复速率仍可能较为缓慢；因此，探究不同替代演替轨迹下的生态弹性，是理解生态系统状态扰动的核心基础。在此研究背景下，本研究聚焦于物理型植物-土壤反馈（plant–soil feedback，即植物生长与土壤物理条件间的功能互作），并基于鹿群密度评估了生态弹性与恢复过程。本研究评估了40年梅花鹿（平均密度14.7头·km⁻²）长期植食干扰对源头集水区内林下植物群落恢复，以及土壤物理性质协同改善的影响。本研究依托为期8年的集水区全域封禁（围栏隔离）与种群调控（仅通过猎杀移除个体，平均密度4.3头·km⁻²）两种处理，分别于2010年（处理前）与2018年（处理后，原文此处截断）开展样地采样工作。