The Effects of Cone Harvesting on the Regeneration of Korean Pine and the Life of Animals in Mt. Changbai Nature Reserve

Based on the former researches, this article studied the influence of cone harvesting of Korean pine on the regeneration of Korean pine trees and the life of animals in Mt. Changbai Nature Reserve. When the cone matures, scales of the cone do not open so the seeds can not be released automatically. And the seeds, if left inside, are hard to germinate and can not grow further into seedlings. The seeds of Korean pine have deep dormancy characteristics. Natural regeneration of Korean pine is very poor under mother trees. Hoarding behavior of dispersing animals not only helps animals for food shortage period but also contributes to the dispersion of seeds of Korean pine. Among those hoarding animals, squirrel and Eurasian nutcrackers are found to be the most important dispersing agents for the seeds of Korean pine. After cone harvesting, the number of those dispersers reduced a lot since the seeds of Korean pine are very important food for them. Seed quantity of Korean pine on surface layer became very few and most of them only showed single distribution. Most of the seeds were buried under litter layer and showed a single or 2-4 seeds/cluster distribution. The case of more than 4 seeds in one cluster was few. The seed quantity of Korean pine forest on steep slopes of the research area was only 0.3% of the seed quantity in 1980 for the same forest type. If seed source of Korean pine are not protected, Korean pine forest in Mt. Changbai Nature Reserve would not maintain present feature in the future.