The forest consists predominantly of towering Blue Gum trees ( Eucalyptus deanei ), with an understory of shrubs.

Some chaparral plant communities may grow so dense and tall that it becomes difficult for large animals and humans to penetrate, but may be teeming with smaller fauna in the understory.

The substory was either managed and park-like, with understory less than 0. 5 metres in height, or consisted of what he called " Cocos Bon-Dieu " –&# 32 ; an intermediate story of juvenile trees and a luxuriant ground layer of self-sown seedlings –&# 32 ; causing those areas to be relatively impenetrable.

Cocos Forest, essentially monotypic (" Cocos bon Dieu "), with the understory consisting of Cocos seedlings.

In the natural state these fruits lodge in the understory of the forest, but with the understory removed the fruits fall to the ground where the petrels move about, sticking to their feathers and making flight impossible.

The understory is usually shrubby, with a dense ground-layer of grasses, lilies, ferns and the like.

Small streams are to be found reasonably frequently and understory plants cohabitate with the larger trees, although the terrain is still fairly open and easy to move through.

In these characteristic areas they are generally considered open forest, they may have a grassy understory, a sclerophyll shrubbery or alternatively they may have a rainforest subcanopy or a rainforest understory with growth being densest nearest to the valley floor or permanent watercourses.

Much of the watershed of Lake Taupo is a beech and podocarp forest with associate understory ferns being Blechnum filiforme, Asplenium flaccidum, Doodia media, Hymenophyllum demissum, Microsorum pustulatum and Microsorum scandens, and some prominent associate shrubs being Olearia ranii nd Alseuosmia quercifolia.

They have a eucalyptus overstory ( 10 to 30 metres ) with the understory also being hard-leaved.

Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs.

Like other maples, its shade tolerance is manifested in its ability to germinate and persist under a closed canopy as an understory plant, and respond with rapid growth to the increased light formed by a gap in the canopy.

Some forested area exists near Taupo, with understory vegetation consisting of certain shrubs and ferns.

Forest of Pinus sylvestris with an understory of Calluna vulgaris on the Karelian Isthmus

The mangrove area developed rapidly but with less understory than a typical wetland possibly because of reduced light levels.

In the natural state these fruits lodge in the understory of the forest, but with the understorey removed the fruits fall to the ground where the petrels move about, sticking to their feathers and making flight impossible.

While it is not definitively known where in these swamps Bachman ’ s Warbler prefers, it is believed that they prefer small edges created by fire or storms with a dense understory of the cane species Arundinaria gigantea and palmettos.

Winter browse availability depends on height of understory brush and winter snow depth ; saplings with narrow stem diameters are required for winter browse in heavy snow.

This coloration helps the oncilla blend in with the mottled sunlight of the tropical forest understory.

Eastern towhees seem to prefer sites with characteristics generally associated with early successional vegetation, such as low canopy cover and dense understory.

In a loblolly pine forest in South Carolina, understory ( 0 – 10 ft ( 0 – 3 m )) pine volume was significantly ( p < 0. 001 ) positively correlated with the average number of eastern towhee territories per experimental unit.

It is usually solitary, living in lowland forests and wetlands, browsing on plants and understory.

Introduced herbivores can also cause problems if they unbalance the ecology of the island ; introduced rabbits destroyed the forest understory on Cabbage Tree Island off New South Wales ; this both increased the vulnerability of the Gould's Petrels nesting on the island to natural predators and left them vulnerable to the sticky fruits of the birdlime tree ( Pisonia umbellifera ), a native plant.

Without disturbance, trees will encroach on a grassland, cast shade, which suppresses the understory.

Selective logging effects on abundance, diversity, and composition of tropical understory herbs.

It is sometimes an understory tree in pine stands on sandy knolls in the southeastern USA.

Introduced rabbits destroyed the forest understory on Cabbage Tree Island ; this both increased the vulnerability of the petrels to natural predators and left them vulnerable to the sticky fruits of the birdlime tree ( Pisonia umbellifera ), a native plant.

Manakins feed in the understory on small fruit ( but often remarkably large for the size of the bird ) including berries, and to a lesser degree, insects.

Most species feed in the understory and midstory of the forest, although a few feed in the canopy and a few on the ground.

Mahonia aquifolium is a native plant on the North American west coast from Southeast Alaska to Northern California, occurring in the understory of Douglas-fir forests and in brushlands.

Fire also kept oak woodlands on drier soils free of a shrub understory.

It commonly form an understory tree in Longleaf Pine and other pine stands on sandy knolls in the southeastern United States.

On these islands palatable plants as well as deep moss mat on the forest floor persist under the dense understory layers of the forest.

The Noisy Miner has benefited from the thinning of woodland on rural properties, heavy grazing that removes the understory, fragmentation of woodland that increases the percentage of edge habitat, and urban landscaping practices that increase open eucalypt environments.

Although the goats did not eliminate the tree canopy as they did on other islands, they greatly reduced the understory vegetation and were removed in 1986.

Furthermore, the amount of light that reaches each understory tree depends on its position relative to the gap.

White-headed lemurs, on the other hand, utilize the understory and lower canopy, below, while the ruffed lemurs utilize the upper canopy, above.

This summarized study, " Effects of forest fragmentation on Amazonian understory bird communities " by Richard O. Bierregaard and Thomas E. Lovejoy, used mist-nets to analyze the effects of forest fragmentation on understory bird communities in terra firme forest of Central Amazon.

Data from intensive mist-netting mark-recapture programs on understory birds from isolated forest reserves were compared to pre-isolation data from the same reserves to investigate changes related to isolation from continuous forest ( Bierregard and Lovejoy 1989 ).

All the Aegithalidae are forest birds, particularly forest edge and understory habitats.

They are naturally understory and woodland edge plants, and grow well when planted under trees.

High densities of Noisy Miners are regularly recorded in forests with thick understory in southern Queensland, or more from the forest / agricultural land edge.

Jefferson salamanders are one of the first amphibians to emerge in springtime at the northern edge of their range in southern Ontario, Canada where they are seen " snowshoeing " across the still frozen understory of the forest to reach partially melted breeding ponds.

They looked at the same response in understory plants, and found the results might suggest that the understory species did have greater water use efficiencies near the forest edge.

This pattern could be explained by either greater mixing of air from outside the forest with the understory air or lower decomposition rates, or both, near the edge.

Although there was little evidence of edge effecting plant water status, distribution of at least one understory species suggests proximity to edge is disadvantageous.