Distribution Expansion of Plants Unpalatable to Sika Deer in Chichibu Mountains

Abstract

We studied the process of distribution expansion of two unpalatable understory plant species, Chloranthus japonicus and C. serratus, in a forest under strong browsing pressure of sika deer (Cervus nippon) and found that 1) deer browsing pressure decreased the abundance of palatable plants, 2) the study plants, released from the interspecific competition from palatable plants, expanded their spatial distribution, and 3) soil water content also influenced the abundance of the study plants.