Seed production and seedling recruitment inside the floodplain forest of the Upper Mississippi River

From 1997 to 2001, we studied seed production and seedling recruitment inside the floodplain forest of the Upper Mississippi River between St. Paul, Minnesota St. Louis, Missouri.  The study design consisted of 4 river reaches, 8 sites, and 120 plots and 120 seed trapping buckets.  Trapped seeds were emptied and counted and seedlings were tallied monthly.  Seed production and seedling recruitment data indicate an overwhelming dominance of light-seeded species, including Acer saccharinum, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Betula nigra, and Ulmus rubra.  Poor seed production and seedling recruitment were such a bottleneck to heavy-seeded species of Quercus that their long-term persistence in the community depends on alternative yet unknown mechanisms of regeneration success.