Ice Storms in Central Hardwood Forests: The Disturbance Regime, Spatial Patterns, and Vegetation Influences

Invasive Species Response to Natural and Anthropogenic Disturbance

“…All but the wettest coastal rainforests are characterized by fire return intervals that have shaped community structure, and forests typically exist in mosaics or patches with different fire histories, creating characteristic patterns of environmental heterogeneity (Churchill et al 2013). Other natural sources of sometimes large-scale disturbance include weather-related phenomena such as long-term drought, extreme wind events, and ice storms (Lafon 2015;Millward and Kraft 2004), and outbreaks of native insects (Raffa et al 2008). At mid-scale, geomorphic disturbances such as flooding, avalanches, and landslides can have dramatic effects, while at a smaller scale, gap formation from the death of individual trees as well as the activities of ungulates and rodents and local-scale flooding and frost-heaving can create openings in otherwise undisturbed vegetation.…”

What Are Intermediate-Severity Forest Disturbances and Why Are They Important?

“…Ice or glaze storms may also result in intermediate-severity disturbance [60,62,63]. Ice loading often removes canopy trees and patterns of mortality may be caused by topographic factors or species-specific characteristics [83]. A wide range of structures may result from mixed-severity fires (more importantly from the mixed-severity fire regime).…”

“…Spatial patterns of mortality and residual trees of intermediate-severity disturbances can typically be classified as uniform, patch, or linear [6,92] (Figure 2). Derechos and ice storms may remove the largest and most dominant canopy trees throughout a stand resulting in a uniform pattern [83,93]. Species-specific mortality agents could result in uniform or patch patterns depending on the spatial distribution of the susceptible species.…”