A long-term study of ecological succession in an urban forest fragment

What is the forest on the campus at Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC going to be like 100 years from now? What changes are taking place in forest community composition? In 1998 an investigation was started to answer these questions about a young forest fragment in an urban area in which most of the trees are less than 30 years old. All trees with a diameter of 10 cm or greater were counted. The saplings in randomly selected quadrats were also counted in order to predict what large trees will be present in future decades. A record of growth and mortality of these trees was kept each year. The hypotheses are that tree species diversity will decrease and the proportion of shade-tolerant species will increase