Human mediated deviations in natural disturbance dynamics and browsing regimes can strongly impact forest understory vegetation. Often such conditions favor a small set of species to increase in density and cover, and form a persistent layer of mono-dominant understory. Dense understory strata, characterized by low diversity, once established are resistant to displacement by other species and remain intact for multiple decades. Such recalcitrant understory layers confer strong bottleneck to tree regeneration and growth of tree species with a potential to alter post-disturbance forest succession. It is understood that forest vegetation structure provides a visible reference of the status of forest ecosystems and any alterations therein has implications to terrestrial carbon dynamics and the ecosystem services derived. Therefore, novel structures formed by mono-dominant understory layers under current disturbance dynamics may reduce the carbon storage potential of native forests and aid in forest transitions from high productive to low productive system states. However, it is unclear if the recalcitrant layers form an alternative stable or a transient forest ecosystem state, catalyze or drive ecosystem change, under prevailing disturbance regimes. In addition, it is unclear if they are self-sustaining by providing strong interference to tree development or perpetuate with help of continued browsing and frequent fires.