Deer browsing effects on understory diversity

Deer populations have increased in recent years throughout Europe; deer browsing of plants and tree seedlings is an important contributor to the overall species composition of the forest. Over the last decades, data has been collected in several forests throughout France, measuring deer browsing activities and their effects on the understory diversity, based on fencing experiments, some dating from the 1970s. The proposed project will involve analysing changes over time of plant communities composition and diversity. R statistical software (mutivariate analyses, analyses of variance by mixed models) will be used to identify vegetation changes and to test their significance. Since deer selectively browse, the overall diversity of the forest might have decreased. It is expected that browsing will influence the composition and abundance of the understory, shifting the species composition towards grasses, sedges, ferns and other less palatable species.

Faculty Supervisor:

Verena Griess

Student:

Partner:

Université de Lorraine

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: