Browse of forest understory vegetation by deer and other large ungulates alters ecosystem processes, making it difficult to regenerate forest land in herbivory-stressed areas. Seventy years ago, Aldo Leopold identified problem areas in the United States where overpopulation of whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) was likely to lead to overbrowsing of nutritive plants. Species of plants with little or no nutritive value would thereby gain a competitive advantage. Recent measurements of browse impacts on regionwide forest inventory plots in the midwestern and northeastern United States provide the opportunity to review the work of Leopold and others. A visualization of the probability of browse impact levels that warrant consideration during regeneration planning is presented for comparison to historical maps.Currently, 59 percent of the 182.4 million acres of forest land inventoried in the Midwest and Northeast was estimated to have moderate or high browse impacts. The Mid-Atlantic region had the highest proportion of forest land with moderate or high browse impacts (79 percent). The oak/hickory (Quercus/Carya) and maple/beech/birch (Acer/Fagus/Betula) forest-type groups each had percentages of forest land with moderate or high impacts above the regional average, 69 percent and 65 percent, respectively. The problem areas described by Leopold and others persist
Participation by the public in the management process of public forested lands has led to innovation in the visual simulation of management options. So far, visualization technology has largely been used by researchers and consultants, not by natural resource managers themselves. A three-dimensional forest visualization system, developed for use by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, incorporates a library of photographs of trees, snags, and even logging debris in an effort to depict forest management activities realistically. Managers need only limited training to quickly generate visualizations depicting a specific stand or an entire landscape in its current and potential future states under a variety of silvicultural treatments. We describe the components of the system so that it can be recreated for other regions.
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