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 60 white spruce understory DHJanzen101267.jpg high resolution
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| The understory of the white spruce forest in image DHJanzen101266.jpg is a densely shaded bed of decomposing spruce parts, and essentially no understory shrubs. There is none of the heterogeneous light intensity associated with a canopy of mixed species of trees in this forest. One begins to wonder to what degree the low species richness is due to the intense filling of the habitat with a single species of tree and to what degree the distance from mainland seed sources. Clearly the two factors interrelate. Were this white spruce monoculture to be bombarded by the full seed rain from a mainland mixed species forest, some of those seeds would indeed find an insolated safe site and begin to generate the kind of canopy heterogeneity that would lead to yet more opportunities for other species. | ||
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