2 School of Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1293.
Processes relating to tree regeneration are many and complex.
To develop generalized conceptual models of tree regeneration, we synthesized information from the forest ecology literature. We produced a list of 21 regeneration attributes that describe flowering, seed production, seed dispersal, dormancy, germination environment, seedling characteristics, and vegetative reproduction. Attributes were classified for each of 62 tree species in the central portion of the eastern hardwoods region. The resulting data are categorical, both nominal and ordinal. We applied multivariate techniques to determine which species were similar and which attributes contributed most to species groupings, with special attention to constraints of categorical data.