Effects of Management on the Composition and Structure of Northern Hardwood Forests in Upper Michigan

By T. Crow, D. Buckley, E. Nauertz, J. Zasada. Forestry sciences, 2002

175 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To improve our understanding of how management affects the composition and structure of northern hardwood forests, we compared managed with unmanaged sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) dominated forests. Unmanaged old-growth and unmanaged second-growth forests provided baselines for comparing the effects of even-aged and uneven-aged forest management on selected aspects of biological diversity. Three replications of each condition were located on the Winegar Moraine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Old-growth forests were multistoried, dominated by a few, large trees with well-developed crowns extending over a subcanopy stratum 10–15 m in height and an abundance of woody vegetation (mostly sugar maple seedlings) at 2–3 m. This complex stand structure contrasts with the relatively uniform structure of unmanaged second-growth forests with a closed overstory canopy and limited understory development. Forest management, both even- and uneven-aged, created forest structures that were more complex than their unmanaged second-growth baselines, yet managed forests lacked some of the structural complexity characteristic of old-growth. Managed forests had fewer large trees (stem diameter at 1.37 m > 50 cm) and considerably less basal area in dead trees when compared with old-growth. There were fewer tree species in managed forests because commercially important tree species were favored for retention and, when present, early successional species (e.g., Populus grandidentata Michx., Populus tremuloides Michx.) were harvested. A subcanopy comprised of large shrubs and small trees characteristic of old growth was absent in managed forests, but this structural element may develop with time under management. As expected, thinning the overstory and disturbing the forest floor through tree harvesting promoted understory development in managed forests. Most of the added species, however, were common in the landscape and thus added little to overall species richness. FOR. SCI.48(1):129–145.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Insect Science, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/33ab7b1ed42e54a1b1d25053ee0c5374d5e096f2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

In Insect Science

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Regeneration responses to gap size and coarse woody debris within natural disturbance-based silvicultural systems in northeastern Minnesota, USA (2011, background): “In contrast, management of northern hardwood forests in the upper Great Lakes region has emphasized single-tree selection (Arbogast, 1957; Crow et al., 2002; Angers et al., 2005).”
The effects of three regeneration harvest methods on plant diversity and soil characteristics in the southern Appalachians (2005, methodology): “Each harvest treatment was replicated three times across the landscape in similar plant community types.”
Do deer and shrubs override canopy gap size effects on growth and survival of yellow birch, northern red oak, eastern white pine, and eastern hemlock seedlings? (2012, background): “…management practices, such as single-tree selection, have facilitated regeneration of shade tolerant sugar maple (A. saccharum) at the expense of these study species (Schwartz et al., 2005), when compared to tree composition of old-growth forests (Goodburn and Lorimer, 1999; Crow et al., 2002).”