Demography and productivity during the recovery time sequence of a wild edible bamboo after large-scale anthropogenic disturbance.

Anthropogenic disturbances in forest management practices can affect wild edible plants. Soil scarification is a large-scale disturbance that may cause long-term reduction in productivity of edible dwarf bamboo, Sasa kurilensis, in northern Japan. For their effective and sustainable use, we need to understand the recovery process after such disturbances. At 14 study sites in the Teshio Experimental Forest of Hokkaido University where soil scarification had been conducted between 2 and 44 years prior, the number and stem diameter of old and young (newly emerged, edible) culms was recorded. At sites that were within 11 years of soil scarification, the proportion of old culms (