Understanding the dynamics of forest understorey: Combination of monitoring and legacy data reveals patterns across temporal scales

摘要

Aims The dynamics of plant communities varies across temporal scales. A correct understanding of temporal patterns is crucial for the interpretation of monitoring outputs. Focusing on the understorey community of an ancient coppice at three temporal scales, our aims were to: (a) assess the link between year-to-year variations and a decadal successional change; (b) estimate how seasonal cyclical dynamics could interfere with the changes at interannual and decadal scales; and (c) account for the effects of coppicing restoration.