The study was conducted in the old-growth forest reserves of Pečka, Rajhenavski Rog and Šumik. The purpose of the study was to quantify the survival of seedlings across different periods, tree species, and forest reserves (Pečka, Šumik, Rajhenavski Rog), as well as to assess the impact of the deer browsing on seedling survival success across tree species. In each reserve, 20 plots were established. On each plot, there was one seed trap, a cage to protect against browsing, and a control plot. The study utilized newly collected data as well as data from previous years, which were combined and analyzed. It was found that in the Pečka and Rajhenavski Rog reserves, beech predominated in terms of the number of seedlings. However, its survival rate was the lowest among all tree species. In the Šumik reserve, the large number of spruce seedlings and their extremly low survival rate were surprising. The best results were found for maple seedlings. At the end of the study, no statistically significant relationship for seedling survival was found between the control plots and the caged plots for fir, which we expected to have reduced survival due to browsing. During the survey, we observed considerable browsing by insects and snails, particularly on beech seedlings. Overall, the study highlights large year-to-year variability in seedling establishment and high mortality of first year seedlings, indicating that longer time windows are needed to understand drivers of seedling dynamics.
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