Conserving Large Oaks and Recruitment Potential while Restoring Midwestern Savanna and Woodland

Restoring Midwestern oak savannas and woodlands over the long term requires balancing mortality of large oaks with recruitment of oaks into large size classes. At restoration sites in northwestern Ohio, we tracked survival of large oak trees (≥20 cm in stem diameter) and recruitment between 2002 and 2015 after initial tree thinning and prescribed burning treatments. The 24 study sites spanned a gradient of canopy cover from unrestored forests to...