The goal of this research program is 1) to develop forest operation systems that reduce costs of forest management, and 2) to better understand the interrelations forest operations have with the physical environment and its biological diversity. A broad social goal is to develop systems that cost less than traditional intensive plantation management for the south-eastern Piedmont region of the USA. This is important because non-industrial private landowners in this region control about 70 percent of the forest land base, and their lands tend to have low productivity caused, in part, by their unwillingness to practice high cost intensive management and an interest in more than just high yield timber production. In this region of highly erodible soils, forest operation systems are being examined for the effects of harvesting on soil movement and nutrient pools through judicious timing of both felling and the initiation of post-harvest fire. Specifically, the timing of commercial felling in the absence of post-harvest fire affects the density of species that regenerate naturally from seed-in-place. Timing of the residual felling followed by post-harvest fire prescriptions affects fuel structure and subsequent fire intensity and severity. The relationship of soil and forest floor moisture to fire severity strongly affects forest floor consumption by the fire, which in turn affects soil movement, organic nutrient pools, and seed bed conditions for early herbaceous growth. Abundant herbaceous growth sequesters plant nutrients freed by the harvesting process thus reducing loss of nutrients from the site. Timing of the residual felling and the postharvest fire can also affect both the patchiness of fuel consumption from the burn and the competitive status of regeneration from seed and coppice. Some limited work on faunal community response to forest operation systems shows that patchy burns affects the habitat structure for small mammals, and thus their abundance during early stand development.
Correspondence: F. Thomas Lloyd, USDA Forest Service, Southern Forest Research Station, Room 241 Lehotsky Hall, Clemson, South Carolina 29634-1003, USA
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