Restoration of old forest characteristics in a 1957 spacing trial in the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest, British Columbia

Farahbakhchian, Victoria (author)
Bendell, Leah (committee member)
Ransome, Doug
Harrison, Scott
British Columbia Institute of Technology School of Construction and the Environment (Degree granting institution)
Simon Fraser University Faculty of Environment (Degree granting institution)

Research paper/project

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© Victoria Farahbakhchian, 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright heron may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphics, electronic, or mechanical including photocopying, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems – without written permission of the author.
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British Columbia Institute of Technology

2017-04-25

70 pages

Forest managers are interested in determining how stands that have been logged might be managed to restore features characteristic of forests in later-stages of development. Incorporating forest restoration into forest management enables the use of forest-management skills, such as silviculture and regeneration techniques, to manage individual stands for multiple objectives. Therefore, I performed a comparative analysis of large trees, very-large trees, large snags, very-large snags, and large CWD among three stand types (i.e., 60-yr-managed, 140-yr-natural, and 500-yr-natural stands). The 140-yr-natural and 500-yr-natural stands were used as reference conditions to guide the restoration of a 59-yr-managed spacing trial. All attributes differed among stand-types; however, large snags were the most similar attribute between 140-yr-natural and 500-yr-natural stands. Large trees were the fastest attribute to recover in 60-yr-managed stands, however mean values among stand-types still differed. This study highlights the potential of restoring old-natural attributes in younger-managed stands to increase ecological resiliency.

forest
natural
managed
prescription
restoration
old-natural attributes

Restoration ecology
Forest restoration

electronic

Malcolm Knapp Research Forest (B.C.)

Master of Science