Journal
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
Volume 465, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118090
Keywords
Green tree; Avian; Biodiversity; Populus tremuloides; Ecological forestry
Categories
Funding
- Minnesota Forest Resources Council
- U.S. Department of Agriculture/Department of Energy Biomass Research Development Initiative
- USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
- U.S Department of Interior Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center
- Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Contemporary forest management is increasingly focused on maintaining ecosystem function and services including biodiversity conservation. As a result, harvest guidelines related to retention of live trees and woody biomass (fine and coarse residue arising from harvesting) have been developed to provide benefits for wildlife, but there is much uncertainty on the effectiveness of these guidelines depending on stage of succession, retention levels, and focal taxa. We used an operational-scale, fully replicated factorial experiment to determine the effects of both tree retention (none, dispersed, aggregated) and woody residue harvesting (no removal, 20% retention, all removed) on breeding bird and small mammal communities in aspen forests 7-8 years after harvest. Bird community metric responses showed a clear and consistent positive response to tree retention; both tree retention configurations resulted in higher total abundance, increased diversity, and higher species richness compared to stands with no tree retention. There was no difference in community metrics between the retention configurations and no evidence that early successional species were negatively affected by tree retention. Total abundance of small mammals was lower in clear-cuts compared to tree retention treatments; moreover, clear-cut stands had lower species diversity compared to stands with the aggregated tree retention. There were limited effects of biomass harvest treatments on small mammal communities, likely because actual biomass removal was much lower than experimental targets. Overall, our results provide conclusive evidence on the continued benefits of tree retention on wildlife communities se0ven and eight years post-harvest in regenerating aspen forests.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available