Castanopsis cuspidata

The species is common on the mainland of Japan, where it is often found inland away from the coast. It is one of two species that make up climax laurel forests on the island and hence it is assumed the species is abundant (Hiroki and Ichino 1998). The species is found in contiguous forest from the Setouchi Inland Sea coast to the Japan Sea Coast (Yamada et al. 2002). On Higashiyama hill near Kyoto C. cuspidata subpopulations are considered to be increasing. Here, from 1961 to 2004 the species range has increased from 6.9 ha to 32.1 ha (Hirayama et al. 2010). The same study by Hirayama et al. (2010) showed that the population within one forest plot had good regeneration due to a inverse J population structure, where the most abundant tree sizes were in size class 1 and 2. It is not known if the species shows range expansion and good regeneration across its whole distribution. In fact, other studies (Yamada et al. 2002) have reported decline in the area of the species native Laurel forests which has also caused them to become fragmented. 
The South Korean subpopulation is likely to be smaller as the species is found only at the southern tip of the peninsular (Chang and Kim 2015). It is most common on the Southern Islands.

Overall, the C. cuspidata population is expected to contain more than 10,000 mature individuals. Due to the opposite reports of population decline and increase in Japan the species population trend cannot be confirmed.