The short-term and long-term effects of honeysuckle removal on canopy structure and implications for urban forest management

•Honeysuckle removal caused immediate declines in canopy leaf area and changes in spatial leaf distribution that resulted in increased canopy structural complexity that continued to accrue more than a decade after removal.•The long-term structural changes were dependent on initial site conditions prior to disturbance, whereby increased structural complexity only occurred in areas with initially large honeysuckle abundance and low native tree density.•Visual assessments of honeysuckle cover may be used to rapidly quantify areas that would benefit most from honeysuckle removal due to the strong correlation with native tree canopy structure, while honeysuckle stem count and basal area are poor candidates, due to a lack of correlation with canopy structural metrics and the time consuming and labor-intensive nature of collecting this data.•In application, our results suggest that honeysuckle removal has the potential to increase the long-term canopy structural complexity and increase understory openness; but initial stand conditions should be considered during forest management aimed at restoring structural complexity of forests.