Accepted Article This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.13237 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Journal of Ecology MS ALISSA JANE BROWN (Orcid ID : 0000-0002-1511-8496) Article type : Research Article Editor : Pierre Mariotte Shade tolerance and mycorrhizal type may influence sapling susceptibility to conspecific negative density dependence Alissa J. Brown 1* , Christopher J. Payne 2 , Peter S. White 1,2 , Robert K. Peet 1,2 1 Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 2 Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill *Correspondence author: abrown324@gmail.com Author contribution statement AB, PW, and BP conceived the ideas and designed the methods; CP and BP collected, managed, and quality checked the data; AB analysed the data; AB led manuscript writing. All authors contributed to the manuscript drafts and gave final approval for publication. Abstract 1. The maintenance of tree diversity has been explained by multiple mechanisms. One of the most thoroughly studied is conspecific negative density dependence, in which specialist plant enemies reduce survivorship of seeds, seedlings, or saplings located near adult conspecifics. Although there is much support that conspecific negative density dependence occurs in temperate forests, only a subset of the species investigated thus far exhibit this recruitment pattern. It remains unclear what