Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Forestry and Environmental Conservation
Committee Chair/Advisor
G. Geoff Wang
Committee Member
William C. Bridges Jr.
Committee Member
Jason D. Fridley
Committee Member
Lauren S. Pile Knapp
Abstract
Coastal forests of the southern United States and the ecosystem services they provide are threatened by an intensifying and interacting suite of disturbances associated with global change. Silvicultural strategies such as enrichment planting, invasive plant management, and browse mitigation treatments can enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity of forests to these threats by promoting sustainable regeneration and recruitment dynamics. To improve our understanding of coastal forest disturbance regimes and their impacts on forest stand dynamics, I conducted a systematic literature review of maritime forest disturbance ecology and identified coastal storms, ungulate browsing pressure, and invasive plants as primary disturbances shaping forest regeneration, recruitment, and overstory survival. In this context, I conducted field experiments to test silvicultural approaches for establishing regeneration of disturbance-adapted tree species and mitigating the impacts of intense browsing pressure and invasive plant competition. I planted seedlings of three disturbance-adapted species [live oak (Quercus virginiana), cherrybark oak (Quercus pagoda), and south Florida slash pine (Pinus densa)] in hurricane-impacted stands and examined the effects of initial seedling morphology and browse protection on seedling survival and growth. Seedlings with larger basal diameters at the time of planting were more likely to survive through two growing seasons, and rigid-mesh tube shelters significantly increased the survival, height growth, and diameter growth of browse-sensitive oak species. Consequently, the use of browse protection and larger seedling size grades can improve the survival and growth potential of adaptation-focused enrichment plantings. I also evaluated strategies for managing Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera), an impactful invasive tree in coastal forests, by characterizing its resprouting response following repeated topkill treatments informed by target plant ecology and phenology. I found that resprouting capacity increased with rootstock size and that repeated, growing-season mechanical topkill reduced rootstock survival and understory tallow stem density, with increasing treatment effects at higher topkill frequencies. Overall, this research informs silvicultural strategies for facilitating the disturbance resilience of coastal forests through integrated management of limiting factors on sustainable forest regeneration.
Recommended Citation
Bohannon, Ryan, "Silviculture for Coastal Forest Resilience: Promoting Forest Regeneration and Managing Invasive Plant Species" (2026). All Dissertations. 4405.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4405
Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-7786-8153
Included in
Botany Commons, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Forest Biology Commons, Forest Management Commons