Abstract
Contemporary forest management is increasingly focused on maintaining ecosystem function and services including biodiversity conservation. As a result, harvest guidelines related to retention of live trees and woody biomass (fine and coarse residue arising from harvesting) have been developed to provide benefits for wildlife, but there is much uncertainty on the effectiveness of these guidelines depending on stage of succession, retention levels, and focal taxa. We used an operational-scale, fully replicated factorial experiment to determine the effects of both tree retention (none, dispersed, aggregated) and woody residue harvesting (no removal, 20% retention, all removed) on breeding bird and small mammal communities in aspen forests 7–8 years after harvest. Bird community metric responses showed a clear and consistent positive response to tree retention; both tree retention configurations resulted in higher total abundance, increased diversity, and higher species richness compared to stands with no tree retention. There was no difference in community metrics between the retention configurations and no evidence that early successional species were negatively affected by tree retention. Total abundance of small mammals was lower in clear-cuts compared to tree retention treatments; moreover, clear-cut stands had lower species diversity compared to stands with the aggregated tree retention. There were limited effects of biomass harvest treatments on small mammal communities, likely because actual biomass removal was much lower than experimental targets. Overall, our results provide conclusive evidence on the continued benefits of tree retention on wildlife communities se0ven and eight years post-harvest in regenerating aspen forests.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 118090 |
Journal | Forest Ecology and Management |
Volume | 465 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 1 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding for the implementation of the study design was provided by the Minnesota Forest Resources Council, U.S. Department of Agriculture / Department of Energy Biomass Research Development Initiative, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station , and the U.S Department of Interior Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Funding Information:
Funding for the wildlife portion of the project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
Funding Information:
Special thanks to Josh Kragthorpe, John Thompson, and Tom Heffernan for leading study establishment, and to Josh Bednar, Steve Kolbe, Nick Walton, and Alexis Liljenquist for wildlife data collection. We also thank the St. Louis County Land Department and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for providing field research sites. Natural Resources Research Institute contribution number 638. Funding for the implementation of the study design was provided by the Minnesota Forest Resources Council, U.S. Department of Agriculture/Department of Energy Biomass Research Development Initiative, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S Department of Interior Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. Funding for the wildlife portion of the project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
Keywords
- Avian
- Biodiversity
- Ecological forestry
- Green tree
- Populus tremuloides