2026-10-09T21:03:32Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/33724567 2026-09-14T09:07:44Z category_24217 category_24220 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

<b>A 25-year canopy-release experiment reveals persistent, intensity-dependent recovery of Korean pine</b> Guoyong Yan (14273351) Community ecology (excl. invasive species ecology) Ecological physiology Forest restoration governance <p dir="ltr">Restoring Korean pine (<i>Pinus koraiensis</i>) in secondary broadleaved forests is constrained by prolonged canopy suppression, yet the long-term growth response of established trees to canopy release remains unclear. We analysed a replicated 25-year canopy-release experiment in northeastern China in which plots containing established Korean pine beneath a secondary broadleaved canopy were assigned to five levels of retained canopy closure, ranging from 80% closure to complete overstorey removal. Release generated persistent and intensity-dependent growth gains. After 25 years, Korean pine basal area under complete release was approximately 4.4 times that under the closed-canopy treatment, and the strongest release treatments maintained higher annual basal-area increments across all three post-treatment stages. Structural equation models showed that the growth response covaried with photosynthesis and soil nitrogen–phosphorus balance; after these variables were included, canopy closure had no detectable direct association with annual increment. Plot-level bootstrapping showed that complete release advanced attainment of the closed-canopy basal-area benchmark by 18.0 years (95% confidence interval, 16.3-19.7 years), and alternative cumulative-growth and growth-rate benchmarks yielded a broadly similar ordering of treatments. Taken together, these findings show that strong canopy release can redirect the long-term growth trajectory of established Korean pine and advance a measurable phase of recovery of the late-successional conifer component by nearly two decades.</p> 2026-09-14T09:07:44Z Dataset Dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.33724567.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/_b_A_25-year_canopy-release_experiment_reveals_persistent_intensity-dependent_recovery_of_Korean_pine_b_/33724567 CC BY 4.0