Sprouting and height in a Fagus engeriana population
米心水青冈种群萌条更新与高度生长

Resprouting plays an important role in the regeneration of many tree species, especially in disturbed habitats. It was suggested that there is a trade\|off between sprouting and height growth. This hypothesis was previously tested by comparing the heights of sprouters and its non\|sprouting congeners. However, differences in life history and other biological characteristics may invalidate such a comparison. In this paper, we try to test such a hypothesis in Fagus engleriana and to understand the effect of resprouting on demography. We investigated characteristics of Fagus engleriana individuals from a community in Tianmushan. We compared the heights of single and multi\|stem individuals with similar diameter at breast height (DBH) as well the heights of mature individuals of the similar size with few and abundant stems. We also quantified the sprouting characteristics and their relationship with height and DBH of the largest individual. Positive relationship was found between number of stems and DBH of the largest stem. No significant difference was found in height between single and multi\|stem individuals, also between mature individuals with few and abundant stems, indicating that there is no trade\|off between sprouting and height growth in F. engleriana. Positive relationship was found between height and number of stems. Negative relationship was found between variation coefficient of the largest three stem and number of stems, indicating that difference among the largest three stems decreased with increasing number of stems, due to photosynthesis of each stem. Size of the studied population was much larger at the ramet level than that at the genet level. Almost all seedling, saplings and small individuals were formed by sprouting, indicating that sprouting plays a critical role in the regeneration of the F. engleriana population in Tianmushan.