Date Range:
Sunday, November 1, 2020 to Monday, March 1, 2021
Publication Date:
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
In the autumn of 2020, we transplanted 40 J. virginiana L. seedlings into catchment basins with and without bison. Seedlings were 10 to 30 cm tall and were obtained from a J. virginiana L. woodland from a private property located 11 miles NNE of our study site, from a location similar soil to our sites. Along a fence-line contrast, twenty were planted in an area with bison access and twenty without bison access in November of 2020. Each treatment had two 100 m long transects placed 200 m apart. Along each transect, one seedling was planted every 10 meters along the 100 m transect (n=20 seedlings for bison grazed and n=20 for ungrazed). Seedlings were revisited in December 2020, in January 2021, and in February 2021. With each visit, mortality and the apparent cause of mortality (browsed, trampling, and ripped out) were tracked. Seedling tracking was finished in February, as these treatments were scheduled to burn in the spring.
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