Late-summer soil water content on clear-cut reforestation areas two decades after site preparation in Finnish Lapland

The ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) communities of the central interior of British Columbia: Adaptations to a temperature-constrained environment.

“…One pragmatic advantage of this relationship was that the localization of most of the ant fauna in woody debris allowed for absolute sampling techniques, per unit area, which was superior to only using relative abundance techniques (Chapter 2, Southwood and Henderson 2000). The fact that woody debris had higher temperatures than those recorded for the soil (Chapter 5), and likely had a lower moisture content typical of northern soils (Ballard 2000), especially post-harvest (Elliot et al 1998;Makitalo and Hyvonen 2004), would seem to be the primary reasons for this choice.…”

“…It is often elevated above the surrounding herbaceous vegetation as a consequence of its diameter, by spanning depressions in the forest floor, or by leaning against elevated rocks or across other pieces of coarse woody debris (CWD), increasing its insolation. It also has a low specific heat that enables it to gain heat quickly through the day (Wenzl 1963), and does not have the high moisture content typical of northern forest soils (Ballard 2000) that can act as a heat sink, especially post-harvest (Elliot et al 1998;Makitalo and Hyvonen 2004). Ants nesting in galleries constructed within wood will also be able to move brood to specific locations in which temperatures are ideal.…”

Long-term influence of site preparation on water-retention characteristics of forest soil in Finnish Lapland

“…DISC and PLOU were carried out in the summer of 1974, and BURN and PATCH (or scalping, as in Pohtila and Pohjola, 1985) in the following spring (Pohtila and Pohjola, 1985;Mäkitalo, 1999;Heiskanen and Mäkitalo, 2002;Mäkitalo and Hyvönen, 2004). PATCH was performed by means of a scarifier (see Fig.…”

“…The forest site types, and the location, elevation and exposition of the eight experimental sites have been reported previously (Mäkitalo, 1999;Mäkitalo and Hyvönen, 2004). The soils of the study sites were haplic podsols (FAO, 1990) on glacial sandy tills or fine-sandy tills, which are the two most common till types in northern Finland (Virkkala, 1969).…”

“…The effects of site preparation on forest soil properties in Lapland have in fact been studied to some extent (e.g. Kauppila and Lähde, 1975;Lähde, 1978;Ritari and Lähde, 1978;Lähde et al, 1981), but information about the long-term effects is scarce (Mäkitalo and Hyvönen, 2004).…”