Forest management is driving the eastern North American boreal forest outside its natural range of variability

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment - Tập 7 Số 10 - Trang 519-524 - 2009
Dominic Cyr1, Sylvie Gauthier2, Yves Bergeron3, Christopher Carcaillet4
1Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2Laurentian Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Sainte‐Foy, Québec, Canada
3NSERC-UQAT-UQAM Industrial Chair in Sustainable Forest Management Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue Rouyn-Noranda Québec Canada
4Centre for Bio-Archaeology and Ecology (UMR5059 CNRS), and Paleoenvironment and Chronoecology (EPHE), Institut de Botanique, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France

Tóm tắt

Fire is fundamental to the natural dynamics of the North American boreal forest. It is therefore often suggested that the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances (eg logging) on a managed landscape are attenuated if the patterns and processes created by these events resemble those of natural disturbances (eg fire). To provide forest management guidelines, we investigate the long‐term variability in the mean fire interval (MFI) of a boreal landscape in eastern North America, as reconstructed from lacustrine (lake‐associated) sedimentary charcoal. We translate the natural variability in MFI into a range of landscape age structures, using a simple modeling approach. Although using the array of possible forest age structures provides managers with some flexibility, an assessment of the current state of the landscape suggests that logging has already caused a shift in the age‐class distribution toward a stronger representation of young stands with a concurrent decrease in old‐growth stands. Logging is indeed quickly forcing the studied landscape outside of its long‐term natural range of variability, implying that substantial changes in management practices are required, if we collectively decide to maintain these fundamental attributes of the boreal forest.

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Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Tập 7 Số 10

519-524

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