Incorporating Insect and Wind Disturbances in a Natural Disturbance-Based Management Framework for the Boreal Forest

Forests

DanielD. Kneeshaw¹  Kaysandra Waldron²  Jean-Claude Ruel²  Mathieu Bouchard³  Marilou Beaudet⁴  Sylvie Gauthier⁴  LouisDe Grandpré⁴  Christian Hébert⁴ 

[1] Centre for Forest Research, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Quebec in Montreal, P.O. Box 8888, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada;Department of Wood and Forest Science, Laval University, 2405 rue de la Terrasse, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada;Direction de la Recherche Forestière, Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, 2700 rue Einstein, Québec, QC G1P 3W8, Canada;Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Laurentian Forestry Centre, 1055 rue du PEPS, P.O. Box 10380, Québec, QC G1V 4C7, Canada;

关键词: biological legacies;    structural legacies;    salvage logging;    windthrow;    spruce budworm;    natural disturbance-based forest management;    disturbance regime;   

DOI  :  10.3390/f9080471

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Natural disturbances are fundamental to forest ecosystem dynamics and have been used for two decades to improve forest management, notably in the boreal forest. Initially based on fire regimes, there is now a need to extend the concept to include other types of disturbances as they can greatly contribute to forest dynamics in some regions of the boreal zone. Here we review the main descriptors—that is, the severity, specificity, spatial and temporal descriptors and legacies, of windthrow and spruce bud worm outbreak disturbance regimes in boreal forests—in order to facilitate incorporating them into a natural disturbance-based forest management framework. We also describe the biological legacies that are generated by these disturbances. Temporal and spatial descriptors characterising both disturbance types are generally variable in time and space. This makes them difficult to reproduce in an ecosystem management framework. However, severity and specificity descriptors may provide a template upon which policies for maintaining post harvesting and salvage logging biological legacies can be based. In a context in which management mainly targets mature and old-growth stages, integrating insect and wind disturbances in a management framework is an important goal, as these disturbances contribute to creating heterogeneity in mature and old-growth forest characteristics.

【 授权许可】

Unknown