1 Hunting history was provided by Hopewell Valley
Friends of Open Space and the Mercer County Parks Department, the owners
and managers of these natural areas.
2 Native shrub cover and herb layer native species
richness decrease with deer overabundance (Rawinski 2008). Shrub cover
was measured with a ‘forest secchi’ method (from Michael Van Clef,
Hopewell Valley Friends of Open Space). It quantifies the percent
vertical foliage cover of native woody plants in the deer browse zone,
0.4 m – 1.4 m from the ground (Pierson & deCalesta 2015), by a
researcher observing from across the plot a 1 m2 board
that was divided into a 4 x 4 grid, and counting the percentage of grid
squares intercepted by native woody plants. This was done in two
perpindicular directions and the values were averaged. Native species
richness was from a spring herb layer census, using the census method
described in the paper; values shown are for the number of species in
the 16 m2 plots.
3 Quercus rubra and/or Q. velutina (red
and black oak) were the only preferred deer food species (Wakeland &
Swihart 2009) that also are common seed-source canopy trees in each of
this study’s forests. Quercus presence was from spring and fall
censuses. Canopy tree importance values for Q. rubra plusQ. velutina were obtained with standard procedures (Brower et al.
1990).
4 The presence of tell-tale shredded twig tips
indicated deer browse (Pierson & deCalesta 2015). The browse index for
each forest consisted of the proportion of browsed individuals in
unfenced plots of five native species that were browsed by deer and
sufficiently common in the forests’ understories to use for comparison
between forests: Carya spp., Fagus grandifolia,Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Acer rubrum , and Rubus
allegheniensis .
Table 2. Mixed model results for the effects of fencing treatment,Microstegium vimineum (MIVI) cover, and interactions on foliar
antioxidant capacity (A), phenolics concentration (B), and flavonoid
concentration (C) in juveniles of the tree species Fraxinus
pennsylvanica and Fagus grandifolia growing in forests of
central New Jersey, USA.