Stand and landscape-level simulations of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and salvage logging effects on live tree and deadwood habitats in south-central British Columbia, Canada

Lewis, Doug

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2009.08.031

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Salvage logging can be a useful management tool in a multiple-use forest, so long as considerable residual structure is retained, as recommended elsewhere [45,[58][59][60], and if it is conducted in landscapes where naturally disturbed early-successional habitats are plentiful [34], preferably without increasing the rate of harvest to unsustainable levels. But what are the consequences, and some mitigative alternatives, if society decides to harvest some of tomorrow's timber supply today?…”

Section: Bridging the Timber Supply Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Striving for Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Unprecedented Change: The Case of the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia

Burton

2010

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A massive insect outbreak in the public forests of central British Columbia (Canada) poses a serious challenge for sustainable forest management planning. Tree mortality caused by natural disturbances has always been a part of wild and managed forests, but climate change is accentuating the uncertainty around such losses. Policy responses to accelerate overall timber harvesting levels to prevent further tree mortality and to aggressively salvage value from dead wood before it deteriorates can be disruptive and even counter-productive in the long run. Current alternatives are to strategically redirect existing timber harvesting quotas to the most vulnerable areas, minimize overall uplifts in cutting activity, prolong the period over which harvested timber can be processed, avoid the harvesting of mixed species stands or those with good advance regeneration, employ more partial cutting or “selective logging” techniques, and relax standards for acceptable species and inter-tree spacing during post-disturbance stand recovery. At the same time, careful attention to species composition and evolving landscape risk profiles may facilitate adaptation to anticipated climate change and reduce vulnerability to future disturbances. Harvest levels must be set conservatively over the full planning horizon if it is important to assure continuity of the timber supply with few disruptions to regional socio-economics and less stress to ecosystems. Broader lessons in sustainability include the option to emphasize persistence, continuity and flexibility over the long term, though at the expense of maximized production and full resource utilization in the short term

show abstract

Section: Bridging the Timber Supply Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Striving for Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Unprecedented Change: The Case of the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia

Burton

2010

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1). Snag fall rate is influenced by many site-scale factors (Keen 1929) including: tree species and size (Harmon et al 1986); the cause of tree death (Raphael and Morrison 1987); soil type and soil moisture conditions (Lewis 2009); microclimate, elevation, and topography of the site (Everett et al 1999); and stand density and management regime (Harmon et al 1986, Garber et al 2005, Russell et al 2006. It is impossible to account for all of these factors at a national scale, because the understanding of their interactions is incomplete and national data sets for all of the explanatory variables are lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of snag carbon transfer rates by ecozone and lead species for forests in Canada

Hilger

Shaw

Metsaranta

et al. 2012

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standing dead trees (snags) and downed woody debris contribute substantially to the carbon (C) budget of Canada's forest. Accurate parameterization of the C transfer rates (CTRs) from snags to downed woody debris is important for forest C dynamics models such as the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3), but CTRs are rarely measured or reported in the literature. Therefore, forest C models generally use snag fall rates (FRs) available in the literature, as a proxy for CTRs. However, FRs are based on stem counts while CTRs refer to mass transfers. Stem mass and stem number are not linearly related, with small diameter trees representing disproportionately lower C mass transfers. Therefore this proxy, while convenient, may bias C transfer from standing dead to downed woody material. Here, we combined tree data from 10802 sample plots and previously published species-specific individual-tree relationships between tree diameter (diameter at breast height, dbh) and fall rate to derive stand-level estimates of CTRs for the CBM-CFS3. We estimated CTRs and FRs and used the FR values to validate this approach by comparing them with standardized FR values compiled from the literature. FRs generally differed from CTRs. The overall CTR (4.78% +/- 0.02% per year, mean +/- SE) was significantly smaller than the overall FR (5.40% +/- 0.02% per year; mean +/- SE). Both the difference between FR and CTR (FR - CTR) and the CTR itself varied by ecozone, with ecozone means for CTR ranging from 3.94% per year to 10.02% per year. This variation was explained, in part, by heterogeneity in species composition, size (dbh distribution), structure, and age of the stands. The overall mean CTR estimated for the Snag_Stemwood (4.78% per year) and the Snag_Branches (11.95% per year) pools of the CBM-CFS3 were approximately 50% and 20% higher than the current default rates used in the CBM-CFS3 of 3.2% and 10.0%, respectively. Our results demonstrate that using CTRs to estimate the annual C transfer from standing dead trees to downed woody biomass will yield more accurate estimates of C fluxes than using a FR proxy, and this accuracy could be further improved by accounting for differences in ecozone, stand component (hardwood or softwood), or lead species.

show abstract

“…Large‐scale commercial forestry and cattle ranching dominate the landscape. Logging has increased to an unprecedented rate since 2010 because of the largest recorded outbreak of mountain pine beetle (British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range 2006, Heinrich 2007, Ritchie 2008, Lewis 2009, Alfaro et al 2015). The outbreak resulted in extensive tree mortality and subsequent salvage logging, leading to abundant cutblocks and road development across the landscape.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Female Moose Prioritize Forage Over Mortality Risk in Harvested Landscapes

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since 2010, several moose (Alces alces) populations have declined across North America. These declines are believed to be broadly related to climate and landscape change. At the western reaches of moose continental range, in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, wildlife managers have reported widespread declines of moose populations. Disturbances to forests from a mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonum ponderosae) outbreak and associated salvage logging infrastructure in British Columbia are suspected as a mechanism manifested in moose behavior and habitat selection. We examined seasonal differences in moose habitat selection in response to landscape change from mountain pine beetle salvage logging infrastructure: dense road networks and large intensive forest harvest cutblocks. We used 157,447 global positioning system locations from 83 adult female moose from 2012 to 2016 on the Bonaparte Plateau at the southern edge of the Interior Plateau of central British Columbia to test whether increased forage availability, landscape features associated with increased mortality risk, or the cumulative effects of salvage logging best explain female moose distribution using resource selection functions in an informationtheoretic framework. We tested these hypotheses across biological seasons, defined using a cluster analysis framework. The cumulative effects of forage availability and risk best predicted resource selection of female moose in all seasons; however, the covariates included in the cumulative models varied between seasons. The top forage availability model better explained moose habitat use than the top risk model in all seasons, except for the calving and fall seasons where the top risk model (distance to road) better predicted moose space use. Selection of habitat that provides forage in winter, spring, and summer suggests that moose seasonally trade predation risk for the benefits of foraging in early seral vegetation communities in highly disturbed landscapes. Our results identified the need for intensive landscape-scale management to stem moose population declines. Additional research is needed on predator densities, space use, and calf survival in relation to salvage logging infrastructure.

show abstract

Stand and landscape-level simulations of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and salvage logging effects on live tree and deadwood habitats in south-central British Columbia, Canada

Cited by 9 publications

References 55 publications

Striving for Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Unprecedented Change: The Case of the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia

Striving for Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Unprecedented Change: The Case of the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia

Estimation of snag carbon transfer rates by ecozone and lead species for forests in Canada

Female Moose Prioritize Forage Over Mortality Risk in Harvested Landscapes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About