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Part B, Working Papers, February 1974 - Special Collections - US ...

Part B, Working Papers, February 1974 - Special Collections - US ...

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Vietnam, It is difficult to estimate how many hectares of the dense forest reflectthis form of prior treatment. Study of low level aerial photography suggests thatit is very small compared to the area that has been high graded.Where removal of the large trees is accompanied by disturbance of the soiland understory, the pattern of succession in the re-establishment of a high forestIs somewhat different. Stump sprouts from the original stand provide advanceregeneration, bamboo rhizomes provide new culms of bamboo expanding rapidly inthe absence of competition and intolerant species such as Trema, Mai lotus, Hacaranga,etc. Invade the area and compete with the bamboo. Lagerstroemia, which occurs as arelatively infrequent tree in the undisturbed mature forest and as a common overstorytree in the high-graded forest, also occurs as a member of the pioneer species groupIn the forest that appears in early successional stages following abandonment ofareas cropped under shifting cultivation. Where fire is a prominent feature of thedisturbance and it commonly is in South Vietnam, then the early stages of successionare likely to feature heavy intrusions of high grass and bamboo.Removal of the Entire Forest Followed by BurningThis is the case where abandonment after cropping is followed by repeatedburning—the situation in some higher elevation and drier areas. Here the pioneerspecies compete with bamboo, imperata, and elephant grasses for occupation of thesite. Depending upon soil conditions, these sites recover to the closed forestcondition very slowly, Indeed. They give the appearance of seas of bamboo orgrasses. A study of areas such as this in Thailand that were 6, 12, and 26 yearsfollowing abandonment (see Appendix 1) indicated that the seedlings of toleranttrees grew under the shade of the bamboo and grass and eventually emerged iffire did not occur. These observations are consistent with reports on successionfrom other areas of Southeast Asia. Discussing the succession following disturbanceof a dipterocarp forest in the Philippines, Brown (1919) states:11-11

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