Barbara Meyers

1 INTRODUCTION Intraspecific trait variation in plants contributes between 25% and 30% of the total trait variability within and among plant communities (Siefert et al., 2015) and plays an important role in plant community assembly and dynamics by shaping plant and population performance in changing environments (Anderson & Gezon, 2015; Liancourt et al., 2015; Niu et al., 2020).

Introduction The soil seed bank consists of all viable seeds on or in the soil and plays a major role in forest regeneration, also acting as a genetic and taxonomic diversity storage (Leck 2012, Faist et al. 2013). In temperate forests, a large proportion of true forest species, including shade-tolerant herbs and tree species, are rare in the soil seed bank (Bossuyt and Hermy 2001, Fenner and Thompson 2005).

Cathy Quinn In the Field Barbara Jean Meyers | In this edition of “In the Field,” Barbara Jean Meyers visits a modest sugarbush on Good Harbor Hill, located in the Maple forest along the Lake Superior Highlands. It’s a way for year-round residents Cathy Quinn and Staci Drouillard to appreciate the late-winter season, by doing an activity that involves a lot of hard work, but brings plenty of rewards, including a cache of hand-harvested maple syrup. Tools of collecting, in the field.