We counted moose fecal pellet groups in a random subset of
five stands per treatment, by use of five 5.65 m (100 m2) radius circles
in each stand (Neff, 1968); i.e., an additional two plots were located
30 m perpendicular to the original 60 m vegetation transect.
A pellet group was defined as a group of at least five pellets within
one pellet distance from one another, with at least half of the pellet
group falling within the plot; this definition corresponds to estimated
moose density (Harkonen and Heikkila, 1999). Plots were
located at a maximum distance of 500 m from the nearest secondary
road, a requirement due to our interest in silviculture.