Regeneration Guilds

It is often useful to categorize species by their predominant strategy of regeneration. These categories are often called regeneration guilds or regeneration groups. Although placement of species into categories will be somewhat artificial (most species exhibit many combinations of reproductive strategies), these categories help silviculturalists design efficient regeneration treatments.

Spanning the range from pioneer to extremely shade-tolerant, Appalachian hardwoods represent most of the reproductive strategies possible in trees. Two systems of categorization are summarized in the following sections:

Kelty (1988) reviewed the reproductive characteristics of the more important Appalachian hardwood species and divided them into three basic regeneration guilds:

1. Pioneer Species
   Yellow-Poplar, Sweet Birch, Black Locust
2. Advance-Growth-Dependent Species: Moderate Shade Tolerance
   Black Cherry, White Ash, Basswood, Red Maple, Sweet Birch, Oaks, Hickories, Black Walnut
3. Advance-Growth-Dependent Species: Extreme Shade Tolerance
   Sugar Maple, Beech, Hemlock

Sutherland and others (2000) classified 62 tree species in the central hardwoods region with respect 16 regeneration attributes that describe flowering, seed production and dispersal, dormancy, germination environment, seedling characteristics, and vegetative reproduction using multivariate techniques. Their analysis resulted in nine guilds arranged into three regeneration strategies:

1. Pioneer
   Spring-dispersed, moist site intolerants; spring-dispersed, moist site tolerants; dry site intolerants
2. Opportunistic
   Long-lived intolerants and intermediates; fast-growing understory tolerant; dispersal-limited (large-seeded or sprout dependent)
3. Persistent
   Large-seeded, advance growth dependent; slow-growing, understory tolerant