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Abstract
Natural regeneration differences between oak and pine are common in the Qinling Mountains of central China. Thus, we examined whether this difference could be explained by seed dispersal. We investigated the seed dispersal of Quercus aliena var. acuteserrata Maxim. and Pinus tabulaeformis Carr. and the regeneration characteristics of both species were investigated in the pine-oak forest belt (oak stands, pine-oak stands, and pine stands) of Huoditang Forest in the Qinling Mountains in central China. We found that Q. aliena var. acuteserrata acorns were usually scatterhoarded, while seeds of P. tabulaeformis were generally consumed immediately. We found that 55% of the released acorns were transferred to the P. tabulaeformis stands. Moreover, Q. aliena var. acuteserrata regenerated successfully and was recruited in the three forest stands. However, the natural regeneration of P. tabulaeformis was very low in all stands because of high predation by small rodents. We propose, therefore, that the seed dispersal advantage of Q. aliena var. acuteserrata compared with P. tabulaeformis contributed greatly to the regeneration difference between these two species in the pine-oak forest belt of the Qinling Mountains in China.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript and Dr Duncan E. Jackson for improving the English writing of the manuscript. Funds were provided by the Special Research Program for Public-Welfare Forestry of State Forestry Administration of China (No. 20100400206), National Natural Science Funds (No. 31070570), and CFERN & GENE Award Funds on Ecological Paper. These experiments comply with the current laws of our country.