Red maple is one of the most abundant and wide-ranging tree species in North America, and has the unusual capacity to regenerate both early and late in forest succession. It thrives in the face of land use change and human disturbance, but no single physiological trait explains its success. Marc Abrams referred to this puzzle as the Red Maple Paradox in a review of the same name. To untangle this paradox, we examined red maple regeneration over 24 years of forest succession in a chronosequence of shelterwood harvests at the Yale Myers Forest in northeast Connecticut. We compared the morphology, physiology, and plasticity of red maple’s two distinct regeneration strategies: vegetative sprouts and seed-origin trees.
Results/Conclusions:
Sprout-origin trees grew quickly, used water inefficiently, and had high plasticity in leaf morphology, while seed-origin trees grew slowly, used water more efficiently, and exhibited much less morphological plasticity. These complementary strategies may allow red maple to regenerate both early and late in forest succession. Red maple’s unique regeneration may explain the red maple paradox and help predict future forest compositions following disturbance.