Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

At least part of Canada's forest will sustain intensification of forest management over the next decades. A criticism is that planted stands are 'sanitized', with less structural diversity, fewer species, and removal of downed and standing deadwood. Concerns are typically focused on paucity of deadwood and reduced species diversity in the overstory. This research will determine the influence of key habitat structures, early in the rotation of planted stands, on animal and plant taxa and thereby on key ecosystem processes, and how these can be incorporated into management strategy. We are focusing on taxa that have a clear connection to deadwood and thinning response - namely invertebrates, bryophytes, and bird species that are directly dependent upon deadwood, ground vegetation species sensitive to disturbance, and small mammal species that have been observed to have low density in planted stands. We will experimentally manipulate habitat structure elements in spruce plantations, and determine influence and effects of landscape context around sample plantations on the selected taxa. Specific research objectives are to: 1) determine the rate of response of saproxylic (wood inhabiting) invertebrates to management; 2) test effects of three potentially limiting factors on distribution of understory plants - dead wood availability, microclimate conditions, and propagule availability and/or early establishment; 3) evaluate causes of low abundance of red-backed voles, whether change in food supply or ground and below-ground microclimatic conditions; and 4) test predictions that bird assemblages will respond to post-treatment increases in woody debris and to landscape context, and that use of girdled trees by birds will be higher in landscapes with a greater proportion of naturally-regenerated forest. The project will support 8 Masters and PhD students at University of New Brunswick and Université de Moncton. Given the direct involvement of company managers in all phases of the study, results will be speedily incorporated into management practices.