Persistence of aspen regeneration near the National Elk Refuge and Gros Ventre Valley Elk Feedgrounds of Wyoming

We investigated aspen (Populus tremuloides) regeneration in the Gros Ventre River Valley, the National Elk Refuge, and a small part of Grand Teton Nat ional Park, Wyoming, to see if elk (Cervus elaphus) browsing was as damagin g as previously thought. We conducted a landscape-scale survey to assess as pen regeneration across gradients of wintering elk concentrations using 68 randomly selected aspen stands in the 1,090 km(2) Study area. Forty-four pe rcent of the stands sampled supported regeneration of saplings (stems great er than 2 m in height but less than 10 cm in diameter). There were no signi ficant differences of regeneration across elk winter range classification ( p = 0.25) or distance from feed grounds (p = 0.96). Our results suggest tha t some regeneration persists across the landscape at a variety of elk densi ties.