Assessment of natural regeneration of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) 15 years post-regeneration control

We assessed natural regeneration of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) using the data col-lected from the Escambia Experimental Forest in southern Alabama. Fifteen years following the regeneration control, natural regeneration of longleaf remained patchy across a wide range of site/stand conditions, with slightly more than half of all plots containing regeneration, but the den-sity of seedlings and saplings varied significantly. The abundance of seedlings ≤ 1-year-old was positively related to stand age and time since last fire, but negatively related to overstory basal area. The abundance of seedlings and saplings was positively related to stand age, but negatively related to time since last fire and overstory basal area. The probability of achieving ≥ 15,000 seedlings > 1-year-old but ≤ 1-m-tall ha-1 and ≥ 1,250 saplings > 1-m-tall ha-1 was, respectively, positively related to the ratio of time since last fire to overstory basal area and the ratio of quadratic mean diameter to site index. A longer fire interval (> two to three years) should be adopted to naturally regenerate longleaf. We did not find clear zones of exclusion present in natural regeneration even though over-story trees, seedlings and saplings tended to be repulsive spatially and > 80% grass stage seedlings and saplings occurred outside tree crowns.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author