Understory vegetation response to post-tornado salvage logging

In an era of increasing natural disturbances, successful tree regeneration has grown more difficult to achieve. Disturbance notably alters forest microclimates, creating open canopy conditions that might promote growth of undesirable understory communities adept at outcompeting tree seedlings. Salvage logging, a common management response to disturbance, may further impede regeneration success. In 2013, a rare tornado in northcentral Maine, USA, and subsequent salvage operation created three clear ‘treatments’ for evaluation of post-disturbance understory regeneration: blowdown, blowdown followed by salvage logging and an undisturbed control. Ten years post tornado, we inventoried understory vegetation within each of these treatments. We used hemispherical photographs to characterize canopy openness and installed sensors to track temperature and soil moisture throughout a growing season. Results indicate distinct understory community differences among each of the treatments, with the sa..., , , # Understory vegetation response to post-salvage logging

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b90z](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b90z)

This dataset contains the understory vegetation cover, coarse woody material (CWM), sapling data, fisheye photograph and TMS probe data analyzed for a manuscript in progress. Details on methods and codes are located in the metadata sheets of the dataset. Additional details about the methodology can be found in the manuscript.

## Description of the data and file structure

Data are sorted among five sheets: understory vegetation, CWM, saplings, fisheye photos, and TMS. The understory vegetation data sheet lists the treatment, plot, subplot, species, percent cover and month of inventory. The CWM data sheet lists the treatment, plot, transect direction, species (if known), diameter (taken using calipers), height (to midpoint), and decay class (five-class scale). The sapling data sheet lists treatment, plot, transect direction, species, browse (prese...