Derek posted this in a comment but it deserves its own post..these are “interior” specialists, who apparently do better at points of their lives in openings..
Here is a link to Bob Berwyn’s post and some quotes from him..
Currently, most of those conservation efforts focus on preserving mature forests where birds breed, but the new research shows younger forest habitat may be vital in the weeks leading up to migration.
“Humans have really changed the nature of mature forests in the Northeast,” said Scott Stoleson, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station. “Natural processes that once created open spaces even within mature forests, such as fire, are largely controlled, diminishing the availability of quality habitat.
Below are some excerpts from the Science Daily article.
The study suggests that declines in forest-interior species may be due in part to the increasing maturity and homogenization of forests. Openings created by timber harvesting may increase habitat for some forest interior birds, according to Stoleson. “Humans have really changed the nature of mature forests in the Northeast,” Stoleson said. “Natural processes that once created open spaces even within mature forests, such as fire, are largely controlled, diminishing the availability of quality habitat.”
and
In 217 days of netting birds over the course of the 4-year study, Stoleson netted and banded a total of 3,845 individuals. Of these, 2,021 individuals representing 46 species were in the postbreeding stage, based on physiological criteria. Of these, 33 percent were mature-forest specialists, 22 percent were forest-edge species, and the remaining 45 percent were early-successional specialists. All 46 species were captured in cuts, but only 29 species were captured within forest.
Just a reminder that “science” is a function of what is looked at, at what place, species and spatial scale, and our knowledge is only provisional. It seems like this is sometimes forgotten and we expect more than “science” can deliver.
Good to see something about eastern forests but really nothing new here. The Summer 2001 edition of the Wildlife Society Bulletin (WSB), a peer-reviewed journal of the professional organization of American wildlife biologists, contained a series of 8 articles. These examined in depth the changes in habitat and wildlife populations that are resulting from current non-management of wildlands in the eastern United States. In that series Hunter (William C. et al, WSB, 29: 440-455) echoed the consensus of other biologist in stating “Allowing “nature to ‘take its course’ cannot restore the disturbance-maintained ecosystems present prior to European settlement. These conditions are likely lost forever due to the permanent loss of land to human development, loss of keystone species, disruption of natural process, and an ever increasing array of exotics”
In the same series, Trani (Margaret K. et al, WSB 29:423.424) states “Providing young forests contributes to the biological diversity of the forested landscape. The continued maturation of timberland in eastern forests will contribute to the decline and potential loss of some of these [disturbance-dependent ] species”
In other literature, Hamel (US Fish and Wildlife Service 2000) and Pagan et al (Condor 102:738-747) point out the importance of early successional habitat to such “interior species” as the cerulean warbler and wood thrush that are dependent on extensive areas of mature forest. They suggest that managed disturbance has minimal fragmentation impact in largely forest landscapes as long s the forest cover exceeds 70% of the land base.
The problem. both in the west and in the east, is that those in favor of harvesting call it “diversity”. Those opposed use the term “fragmentation”. And never the twain shall meet.
For a more complete discussion check out this webpage.http://www.wvmcconnell.net/?page_id=162
Mac
“The problem. both in the west and in the east, is that those in favor of harvesting call it “diversity”. Those opposed use the term “fragmentation”. And never the twain shall meet.”
–> Right on, but it doesn’t have to be an either one or the other decision. GIS can help us to integrate them much more easily now days. Those who focus exclusively on fragmentation and old growth are overly focused on what is important to them rather than looking at the big picture. Especially with the USFS, connecting corridors can be incorporated with appropriate harvests to balance the components of a forest ecosystem and reduce catastrophic beetle and fire damage as well.
–> When you have a disproportionate amount of your acreage in late serial stage forests it is homogeneity, not diversity. To restore diversity you need heterogeneity introduced by harvesting as appropriate for the site and species in order to establish a spatially diverse age class distribution throughout the forest. This provides the edge effect critical to so many species as some of us learned way back in the 60’s in wildlife management class. The people who focus on old growth and complain about fragmentation just don’t seem to understand that there has to be a balance or in trying to save one thing, you will destroy something else.
Wait a second. “To restore diversity you need heterogeneity introduced by harvesting” ?? Not so fast.
Spatial diversity and complexity can be introduced through many avenues other than commercial logging which removes structure that would otherwise be retained except i the most extreme natural disturbance. Logging does not mimic natural disturbance and is therefore a limited tool for ecological restoration.
We don’t give natural processes enough credit. They are out there doing good work every day. We don’t need logging to save the day. See Lutz. J.A. 2005. The Contribution of Mortality to Early Coniferous Forest Development. MS Thesis. University of Washington. http://faculty.washington.edu/chalpern/Lutz_2005.pdf. This MS Thesis looked at long-term transect data from young forests in Western Oregon and found that non-competitive mortality and gap forming processes are very much in operation in dense young planted stands. See also Lutz & Halpern 2006. Tree Mortality During Early Forest Development: A Long-Term Study Of Rates, Causes, And Consequences. Ecological Monographs, 76(2), 2006, pp. 257–275. http://cfr501.jamesalutz.com/Lutz_Halpern_Mortality_EM_2006.pdf and Franklin, J. F., T. A. Spies, R. Van Pelt, A. B. Carey, D. A. Thornburgh, D. R. Berg, D. B. Lindenmayer, M. E. Harmon, W. S. Keeton, D. S. Shaw, K. Bible, and J. Chen. 2002. Disturbances and structural development of natural forest ecosystems with silvicultural implications, using Douglas-fir as an example. Forest Ecology and Management 155:399-423. http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2002_franklin001.pdf
Tree, how do you generate age diversity among stands of lodgepole (which tend to be the same age in many places), for example. It seems like if you have many acres of the same age, you either need to cut them or burn them. Of course whether that’s commercial is up to the vagaries of markets.. not really biological. What other mechanisms are there?
The two citations you mention seem to be about D-fir and possibly west-side conditions.
Tree
A) Re: “Spatial diversity and complexity can be introduced through many avenues other than commercial logging which removes structure that would otherwise be retained except i the most extreme natural disturbance.”
1) Please lay out the “many avenues” and how they will be paid for other than by increasing the USFS budget.
2) Please tell me why you think that huge natural clearcuts of all of the way up to 200,000 acres, produced by catastrophic beetle and fire outbreaks, provide more diversity and are more visually acceptable than well distributed 50 to 200 acre stands of various age classes resulting from the appropriate harvesting method for the species, terrain and other conditions including the need for travel corridors and other HCP’s (Habitat Conservation Plans).
B) Re: “Logging does not mimic natural disturbance and is therefore a limited tool for ecological restoration.”
1) This is a mantra of many “ologists” and environmentalists who have defined ecological restoration as “must mimic natural processes” and have defined logging as having no ability to mimic nature even though, when done according to best practices and combined with sound regeneration practices, it does less damage than catastrophic fire and restores the land more quickly than natural processes. This use of an assumption to create a definition or basic principle is false science which ignores the fact that the mobile denizens of the forest ecosystem can easily get out of the way of a 200 acre or less logging job while they can’t get out of the way of a uncontrolled fire that engulfs thousands of acres.
C) Re: “non-competitive mortality and gap forming processes are very much in operation in dense young planted stands.”
1) They sure are and the growth and mortality findings of the master’s thesis that you refer to has been documented long before Mr. Lutz’s thesis. My bet is that the foresters of Germany, France, the Nordic countries and elsewhere knew this centuries ago.
2) Sound Forest Management reduces the time that a stand spends in these overly dense conditions which increases the stand’s vigor/health which reduces the stand’s susceptibility to insects and disease. In addition, the reduction of density and removal of ladder fuels reduces the probability of and extent of a catastrophic fire. But then you already know that because it has been explained to you many times here on this blog.
3) I’ve asked you this question before but have not gotten an answer yet: Why is it wrong for a logging job to inconvenience or destroy a small portion of a population within close proximity to similar adjacent acres which can recolonize it and create diversity YET, you are perfectly happy with catastrophic fires that destroys all of the diversity of life in its path and isolates most of the land from any adjacent similar sites which makes it difficult for seed and other living organisms to repopulate the site. I just don’t see why that contradiction doesn’t slap you in the face and cause you to say ‘OOppps maybe there are facts contrary to my beliefs. I want to know the truth so I better check them out.’
D) Your second link is broken
E) Re your third link: ” We discuss the use of principles from disturbance ecology and natural stand development to create silvicultural approaches that are more aligned with natural processes. Such approaches provide for a greater abundance of standing dead and down wood and large old trees, perhaps reducing short-term commercial productivity but ultimately enhancing wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and ecosystem function, including soil protection and nutrient retention”
1) In a perfect world where everything had equal value in terms of contributing to the survival of mankind and where there were no adverse effects from blindly following such policies, I wouldn’t have any problem with this. But, that is not the world we live in. The negatives outweigh the positives (imho) as can be seen every day in the summertime news. As of today 8/28/13 we already have had 12 fires, this summer, in the US over 50,000 acres (78 square miles) with the Rim Fire at 187,000 acres and the day has just started with only 23% containment since the start on late afternoon of 8/17.
2) Please review this post https://ncfp.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/fighting-back-fire-from-the-denver-post/ – It looks like you missed it. Check out the second graph (Figure 3) and my analysis in the first comment below it which clearly demonstrates that forest management much less advanced than that of today produced significantly less total wildfire acreage than after 1993 when harvest acreage was significantly reduced on USFS lands. Also note that stand densities continuously built up after that reduction in harvests. A graph of USFS harvest harvest volumes by year can be found here http://www.fs.fed.us/forestmanagement/documents/sold-harvest/documents/1905-2012_Natl_Summary_Graph.pdf
3) Where is the wisdom of so called natural processes that have resulted in: “Early seral habitats are now the scarcest forest type in the Pacific Northwest” (Page 6, Forestry Source, 6/2013). Where is the wisdom in destroying the foraging habitat found in these early-seral stands to try to preserve old growth forests in a moment in time in order to save the NSO which the facts clearly show is being displaced by and is not nearly as adaptable as the Barred Owl which is its cousin and with which it occasionally breeds. The natural process would be to let evolution take its course. So, again, we have a contradiction in logic that is blithely ignored by those who want to have it both ways. Nature only except when we have a pet project that we want to save no matter how detrimental it is in terms of the forest ecosystem and we’ll even go so far as to shoot the bird that is more suited to adapt to climate change.
Go figure. I just can’t get past the inherent contradictions in your beliefs. It would help me to take you more seriously if you explained how you reconcile the contradictions in your thinking. If you made sense then I would learn something and I’d be a better person for it.
Thanks Sharon for posting this, and Derek for finding it. As Mac suggests, recognition that some species, especially certain birds, which utilize early successional habitat have experienced population declines has been growing over the past two decades. Thanks to work by Chuck Hunter, Robert Askins, Craig Lorimer, and others. One could even argue that the debate over early successional habitat (i.e., how much and how to maintain it) has dominated discussions on management of eastern forests in recent years, or at least until drilling for gas in Marcellus shale hit the scene. What Scott Stoleson’s work (I saw a webinar on his research a few years ago) as well as work by Katie Greenberg, Henry Streby, Richard Chandler, and others has highlighted is that many species thought to be forest interior obligates utilize early seral habitat during parts of their life cycle. But there’s also research showing so-called early successional species using mature, late successional habitats. For example, one of the poster children for early successional habitat, golden-winged warbler, has been found to temporally shift their foraging routines and territorial defense between scrub-shrub habitats and mature forest, and their post-fledging survival is actually higher in the adjacent mature forest than in the open habitat of the nest site (Streby et al. 2012). Also, while the species breeds in relatively small patches of open habitat, they are not found outside of landscapes dominated by forest cover.
So as Gill suggests, it’s not an either/or issue much less black and white. Heterogeneity is indeed key, but there is an unfortunate fixation on age by some forest (early and late seral) advocates. Perhaps we should really be focusing on structural (and compositional) diversity. Visit a restored longleaf pine savanna anywhere in the southeast and few would argue that it was a young stand, yet most would recognize its importance to northern bobwhite and many other users of early successional habitat. I have also visited montane pine barrens with breeding golden-winged warblers – just don’t tell them it’s 100 years old. Like the diversity of disturbances (fire, wind, ice, insects) which historically (and in some cases continue to) created and maintained structural heterogeneity, we should also recognize there are a variety of tools managers can use to restore it. Yes, timber harvests, but also controlled burns, light grazing, mowing, and even wetland restoration (e.g., beavers). Too often we argue for heterogeneity or diversity yet focus on one side of the age spectrum and one type of treatment to get us there.
Thanks, Marek. It seems like it’s difficult to determine what is the “right” level of heterogeneity, let alone manage for it on a landscape composed of different ownerships and unknown numbers of wind events and other disturbances.
I think people always knew that everything old is too much, and everything young is too much. But in the inbetween what should you aim for?
Then people are building homes, which may not be habitat at all. I am just thinking that consciously managing for a variety of seral stages (or the structure that goes with them) is pretty complex across ownerships.. does anyone know any group who has successfully done it? And how they determined their “target” of different seral stages?
Sharon
The answer is pretty simple for your question: “consciously managing for a variety of seral stages (or the structure that goes with them) is pretty complex across ownerships.. does anyone know any group who has successfully done it? And how they determined their “target” of different seral stages?”.
—> Consciously managing for a variety of seral stages across ownerships isn’t necessary except in specific locations for specific purposes such as a travel corridor or maintenance of specific colonies with transition plans that allow for replacement of colonies or stands within a corridor. These plans aren’t static but, instead, allow for the dynamics of the forest and the species. Many conservation agreements between federal, state and timberlands companies (Habitat Conservation Plans (HCP), Memorandums Of Understanding (MOU), Conservation Easements and etc.) have been in place for decades across multiple owners to coordinate habitat for certain endangered species. From experience, timberland companies with acreages of a half million and larger invest significant time and money in HCPs for endangered species like the Canadian Lynx, Red Cockaded Woodpecker and others. The experience of the timberland companies with these species has often resulted in enhanced protection above and beyond the preconceived notions of agency biologists. It’s easy for people on this site, and elsewhere, to dismiss timberland companies as “profit only” but they don’t know what they are talking about. The timberland companies wholeheartedly embrace such programs for the same reason that they embrace BMPs (Best Management Practices) and independent audits – they know that their survival depends on it. The two companies that I have worked for that have much to be proud of in this area are Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek. It is done coast to coast and they have even worked with communities on such issues as viewsheds.
—> Rather than coordinate age class distributions by forest type across ownership, each owner has to be free to manage its own block of regional ownership subject to any agreements like those mentioned above and in accordance with any laws. This is a basic constitutional right.
—> I envision the USFS as IDEALLY having its ownership in a region broken down and classified as to purpose. If the purpose is NSO habitat then the acreage identified as currently in that habitat plus the acreage identified as suitable for incorporation into that habitat would be totaled and divided by some desirable maximum age above the ideal target age for a production forest. The result would be the number of mature acres harvested each year. If three thinnings were appropriate for the life cycle and the habitat structure, then each year that same number of acres would be be first thinned and that same # of acres would be second thinned and etc. This is Classic Forest Area Management. With GIS you would be able to work towards developing spatial diversity and reasonable spatial proximity pairing of some young stands for foraging and some old stands for nesting.
—> However, since no one really, can break the USFS ownership down into purpose classes without starting another civil war. And since no one can successfully play God and arbitrate between all of the conflicting needs of each component of each ecosystem, it would seem to me that the best that we can do is pick a long rotation age appropriate for each keystone species forest type and base the area management on that for the stand type acreage identified by that keystone species. The long rotation age would recognize that USFS lands are not production forests but it would also recognize that production (thinnings and final/regen harvests) was necessary to maximize the health of the USFS forests. So, *IF* Doug Fir was chosen to be managed on a 200 year cycle then one half of a percent of the acreage would be cut each year for each harvest type necessary. So in this case if three thinnings were appropriate, then each year 2% of the forest would receive some type of harvest (0.5% 1st thin, 0.5% 2nd thin, 0.5% 3rd thin and 0.5% final/regen harvest as appropriate for the site and the species including clearcuts where appropriate). With a system like this, forest products manufacturers could gear up over time and eventually these efforts should be able to generate enough money to pay for sound forest management over the entire forest. This is how sound forestry is practiced on timberlands managed by those timberland companies who are committed to the long term view and thereby committed to BMPs and independent audits to insure that their employees are looking out for the best long term interest of the company.
In all of these efforts GIS (geographic information systems) is a key component of success.
Gil: Thanks much for the parentheses! Also like the emphasis on harvesting acreages rather than volumes. The real problem with early seral stage habitat is that almost all of it has been swallowed up by towns, farms, ranches and tightly spaced plantations and “natural” seeding — it was not an ephemeral condition in times past, but stable patterns of grasslands, berry patches, savannah, and understory to widely spaced conifers.
Bob
Due to the nature of the beast, achieving a fully regulated forest is an impossibility. Nature and the market will intervene. Volume based regulation is reasonable and approximates area regulation for industrial forestry. Area Regulation is only the beginning option for the USFS until we get a whole lot further down the road. But even area regulation will have to be a little flexible right from the beginning. It will have to embrace some minimal initial level of sustained harvest volume as we rebuild the manufacturing, logging and regeneration infrastructure to support sustainable sound forest management.
With GIS, decent inventories, growth and yield models, and established harvest scheduling systems, we can determine some reasonable sustainable annual volume to be generated from area regulation and any step ups or downs over time resulting from inconsistent stocking or the need to build more infrastructure for future step ups. Harvest scheduling technology will allow the USFS to smooth some of those bumps and cope with the curves thrown at us by nature and the market. Even when the infrastructure has been rebuilt to a level that will support the sustained needs of sound forest management, there will be years when the market won’t support harvesting as many acres and then there will be years where we make up for what was lost in the down years.
A beginning long term (20 year+/-), minimum volume commitment will need to be made by USFS local areas or nothing will ever get off of the ground. If there is no commitment, we will suffer forever from the after effects of the radical, post 1990, harvest reduction because the taxpayer isn’t going to foot the bill to cut trees for area regulation when there is no market for the wood. Just like the taxpayer isn’t going to foot the bill for wildfires forever. If nothing changes, irresponsible homeowners in indefensible spaces are going to be on their own and it’s going to turn into a burn baby burn, nature rules forest management world for the USFS and they sure won’t need many employees. Actually the quickest solution to sort all of this out might be to simply transfer all USFS lands over to the Sierra club. 🙂 Put up or shut up might work wonders towards opening the eyes of some know it all environmentalists. Sorry, I digress. 🙁