Fine-scale spatial patterns in oak sprouting and mortality in a newly restored coppice

Sprouting is a common life history strategy in tree communities and is crucial for coppice management of woodlands. Recently, there has been increasing interest in coppice restoration throughout Europe and several studies have explored the sprouting ability of tree stumps in the restored stands. Though the spatial distribution of trees has been previously found to affect ecological processes in many ecosystems, no study has so far considered the importance of spatial interactions during the process of coppice restoration. The present study attempts to fill this gap by analyzing fine-scale spatial patterns in sprouting and mortality in a newly restored oak coppice with different densities of residual timber trees. Univariate and bivariate point pattern analyses were used to quantify the observed spatial patterns. While no significant spatial associations were found between residual trees and dead (post-harvest non-sprouting) stumps, our mortality analysis revealed clear non-random interactions between stumps themselves. Negative distance- and density-dependent effects in post-harvest stump mortality were observed at short scales; stumps with more neighboring stumps at a close distance were significantly more likely to die after harvest. Our study demonstrated that non-random effects in mortality are not limited only to generative reproduction of trees but play also an important role in vegetative regeneration of one of the main European broadleaved tree species.