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TOPIC: Nurse logs
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/1f474ec8278d4679?hl=en 
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== 1 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 4:22 am
From: "symplastless"


I was just reading a document from the US Forest service that addresses course woody debris and nurse logs. I wanted to share this with you as I am a strong believer that a tree goes on and carries out ecological rolls long after it becomes a symplastless tree or symplastless wood.

Analysis of forest health monitoring surveys on the Allegheny National Forest (1998-2001)

Morin, Randall S.; Liebhold, Andrew M; Gottschalk, K.W.; Woodall, Chris W.; Twardus, Daniel B.; White, Robert L.; Horsley, Stephen B.; Ristau, Todd E.

Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-339. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. 102 p.

Does anyone know of any data on the length of time CWD can hold water for or until utilized by plants and animals? I remember walking through old growth forest at Cook during drought and the associate picked up a chunk of wood during a very dry time and squeezed it as a steady stream of water fell to the ground.

I must praise the US Forest Service for this one. Until my presence in the commenting process of issues with respect to the Allegheny National Forest, they completely over looked Course Woody Debris all together. I.e., in any proposals and so forth. This leads me to be optimistic.

John

== 3 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 11:38 am
From: DON BERTOLETTE


John-
Welcome to the world of forestry...when I was attending UMASS in early 1990s, there were a dozen researchers investigating the role of coarse woody debris (CWD) in the ecosystem...without a single word said about symplastless entities.
Re how long CWD stays in the ecosystem, it's totally dependent on the site/region/species, in terms of the moisture regimes. In the Southwest, CWD can be found decades later...in the humid environs of the Southeast, much shorter.We foresters describe the role of CWD as one of the prime contributors to an ecosystem's "resilience". Is 'resilience' in your Tree Dictionary?
-Don

== 4 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 1:57 pm
From: "symplastless"

Don

"resilience" I would think it is vitality. Is that what you mean.
Vitality is ability and vigor is potential. As a treatment to trees we
mostly address vitality. Vigor is genetic feature that unless you are
breeders or geneticists working on better material for different sites and
uses, we do not effect vigor. pointed out by a former USFS person, they
word vigor, which I have witnessed, is often used to describe the out come
of a logging sale - when if there was any positive outcome, it would be
vitality of the system. Or so "I" believe. Vitality is a condition
resulting from the type of treatments and the ability of the tree to survive
with high amounts of stored energy. I hope to address this in the
dictionary soon. So, Don, do you mean vitality when you say resilience?
As far as I can remember it is not in there. I am searching my computer now
for the word. Also, a tree that forms heartwood like oak will, how do I say
it, will create a nurse log that would generally out last a log from a maple
(sapwood forming tree, non-heartwood) or a tulip poplar (false heartwood
tree). Of course trees that come fast also go fast. Does that make sense?
I will let you know about your search results.

John

== 5 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 3:02 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE


John-
Regarding resilience, from a forest ecosystem perspective, I'm cutting and pasting several sources of some familiarity to most of us in the ENTS forum:


1)From me, in www.nativetreesociety.org/oldgrowth/degenerate_old_growth.htm
" IN GENERAL, AND IN THIS CONTEXT, RESILIENCE IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE AMOUNT OF DISTURBANCE THAT AN 'OLD-GROWTH ECOSYSTEM' (I'D SAY AUTOPOETIC IF I COULD SPELL IT ) CAN SUSTAIN, AND RETAIN THE EXISTING PLANT COMMUNITY QUALITY...CLEARLY A TORNADO THE LIKES OF THOSE IN THE MIDWEST IS LIKELY TO EXCEED THAT. BUT LET'S SAY IT WAS A MICROBURST THAT JUST TOOK OUT A ONE ACRE STAND...IF IN A REASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME THAT STAND REPLACED ITSELF AND WAS OTHERWISE UNDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE REST OF THE STAND (AGE DIFFERENCE EXCEPTING), THEN THE ECOSYSTEM HAD SUFFICIENT RESILIENCE (SUFFICIENT STORAGE OF NUTRIENTS, SOURCES OF SOIL MICRO-ORGANISMS, ALL THE "STUFF" THAT IT TAKES TO MAKE AN "OLD-GROWTH ECOSYSTEM") TO SUSTAIN SUCH AN INJURY. OBVIOUSLY, DISTURBANCES COVER A BROAD CONTINUUM AND AFFECT DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE ECOSYSTEM. A TORNADO WHISKING AWAY EVERYTHING FROM SOIL, COARSE WOODY DEBRIS, CROWNS, ETC. OBVIOUSLY WOULD LEAVE AN AREA UNRESTORABLE FOR PERHAPS A CENTURY OR MORE.

2) From our ENTS journal editor, et al:
"Publication Information
Title: Restoring old-growth southern pine ecosystems: strategic lessons from long-term silvicultural research
Author: Bragg, Don C.; Shelton, Michael G.; Guldin, James M.
Date: 2007
Source: In: Proceedings of the 2007 National Silvicultural Workshop: 211-224
Description: The successful restoration of old-growth-like loblolly (Pinus taeda) and shortleaf (Pinus echinata) pine-dominated forests requires the integration of ecological information with long-term silvicultural research from places such as the Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF). Conventional management practices such as timber harvesting or competition control have supplied us with the tools for restoration efforts. For example, the CEF's Good and Poor Farm Forestry Forties have been under uneven-aged silvicultural prescriptions for 70 years. Monitoring these demonstration areas has provided insights on pine regeneration, structural and compositional stability, endangered species management, and sustainability capable of guiding prescriptions for old-growth-like pine forests. Other studies on the CEF's Reynolds Research Natural Area have provided lessons on the long-term impacts of fire suppression, woody debris and duff accumulation, hardwood competition, and pine regeneration failures. This experience leads us to believe the productivity and resilience of these forests can be adapted to create functionally sustainable old-growth-like stands by integrating silviculture and restoration.
Key Words: coarse woody debris, crossett experimental forest, loblolly pine, red-cockaded woodpeckers, shortleaf pine, Upper West Gulf Coastal Plain
View and Print this Publication (616 KB)
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Citation
Bragg, Don C.; Shelton, Michael G.; Guldin, James M. 2007. Restoring old-growth southern pine ecosystems: strategic lessons from long-term silvicultural research In: Proceedings of the 2007 National Silvicultural Workshop: 211-224."

3) From:http://www.forestencyclopedia.net, citing "the father of old-growth ecosystems", Jerry Franklin et al...
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience
Authored By: D. Kennard

Ecosystem resilience, one of several measures of ecosystem stability, is the degree, manner, and rate of recovery of an ecosystem to a pre disturbance condition (Majer 1989). Although debated, biodiversity is thought to increase ecosystem resilience. One argument is that greater species diversity provides more pathways for recovery. For this reason, some proponents of sustainable forestry require that forest managers maintain both species and structural diversity in managed stands. Often, this objective is approached by managing structural diversity directly, thereby increasing species diversity indirectly. This approach argues that forests that have a diverse vertical structure will generally support a greater variety of animal life than forests with a simple structure: the greater the number and spatial variability of canopy layers and canopy tree species, the greater the possibility for specialization in the animal community and, in theory, the greater the number of animal species. Increasing structural diversity involves the development of a multilayered tree canopy, the retention of a minimum number of large rotting logs on the ground, and the maintenance of large standing dead tree stems in the stand (Kimmons 1997).

4) From: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/oldgrowth.htm
The Old-Growth Forest Is the Result of Change

Today's old-growth forests started hundreds of years ago after some kind of catastrophic change--perhaps a large forest fire or windstorm--destroyed the previous forest.
But change is a normal part of all ecosystems, including old-growth forests. Small changes go on all the time. A snag falls over, or an animal is born. Bigger changes such as fires, windstorms, or insects kill some trees and create openings in the forest where new trees can grow, adding to the complexity of the forest.
Three qualities are important when an ecosystem responds to changes --biodiversity, biological legacies, and resilience.- Biodiversity--The complexity of the old-growth forest creates many habitats. These habitats support thousands of species, including soil arthropods, spiders, insects, mites, millipedes, lichen, fungi, mosses, small mammals, and bats. This high level of biodiversity means that many species carry out each ecological process.- Biological legacies--After a fire or windstorm, the dead trees become snags or fallen trees on the ground. These dead trees shelter many plants and animals, protect the soil, and enrich the soil as they decay. Biological legacies ensure that many species survive a fire or other disturbance, and the legacies help rebuild the ecosystem.- Resilience--Although forests are changing all the time, they are dynamic. Forests continue their ecological processes through all the changes, a quality known as resilience. A forest rich in biodiversity and biological legacies is resilient.
So John, the above citations get at what I think resilience means...how do the words/concepts vigor and vitality figure into to this? From my perspective, they are most aptly used to describe health in general. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines vigor as "active healthy well-balanced growth especially of plants" and vitality as "the power of enduring". Following Webster's line of thought for vitality, the ecosystems 'power of enduring' would depend on the diversity of resources it had developed over the years to respond to the array of environmental challenges it is faced with. Resilience could easily be so defined.
-Don

== 6 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 7:47 pm
From: "symplastless"

Don

I have not reviewed post completely but I see that a claim is made that after a tornado, logging will give old growth conditions. I strongly disagree and as an example I point out the Tionesta Scenic Area in ANF. It is old growth and recently had a tornado as well as a blow down. It is old growth conditions at its best. Nothing removed. To log that area or perform silviculture as it is often called, would leave an area of once fertile forest as an area that was logged and is not old growth conditions anymore but conditions which remains after logging. ...

John

== 7 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 8:12 pm
From:


John,

I agree. Lee and I noted several differences between old growth areas and adjacent areas salvage logged after a massive blowdown decades ago in the Porcupine Moutains Wilderness State Park in Michigan. We noted a different proportion of the species of trees present - more second growth or pioneer species & fewer conifers in salvaged logged areas. Areas salvage logged also had less diverse flora, more alien plants, were more often already invaded by earthworms, had much more severe forest tent caterpillar infestations (and their friendly flies!), more ticks, etc.

Paul

== 9 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, May 20 2008 9:38 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

John/Paul-
Now I know how it feels to have a newspaper quote me wrong.
Please, read the context, which I supplied, that surrounds what resembles JOHN'S statement.
Suffice it to say, I would NEVER say "...that after a tornado, logging will give old growth conditions...).
In fact, I suggested that tornados might be sufficient disturbance to remove ALL sources of resilience, thus precluding the development of an old-growth ecosystem for centuries. I believe Lee Frelich indicated that he has observed significant soil disturbance from tornados. I would add tornadic disturbance such as he refers to is more significant than that of logging.
As to discussions regarding the use of logging to create old-growth, somebody else can lead that, I'm not interested. The best that has been said on that, from my perspective is that one can create old-growth characteristics through artful logging, but if the resilience is not there, it ain't happening...
-Don