Simulated effects of forest management alternatives on landscape structure and habitat suitability in the Midwestern United States

Understanding the cumulative effects and resource trade-offs associated with forest management requires the ability to predict, analyze, and communicate information about how forest landscapes (1000s to > 100,000 ha in extent) respond to silviculture and other disturbances. We applied a spatially explicit landscape simulation model, LANDIS, and compared the outcomes of seven forest management alternatives including intensive and extensive even-aged and uneven-aged management, singly and in combination, as well as no harvest. We also simulated concomitant effects of wildfire and windthrow. We compared outcomes in terms of spatial patterns of forest vegetation by age/size class, edge density, core area, volume of coarse wood debris, timber harvest, standing crop, and tree species composition over a 200-year simulation horizon. We also used habitat suitability models to assess habitat quality for four species with diverse habitat requirements: ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), prairie warbler (Dendroica discolor), hooded warbler (Wilsonia citrina), and gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). Management alternatives with similar levels of disturbance had similar landscape composition but different landscape patterns. The no-harvest scenario resulted in a tree size class distribution that was similar to scenarios that harvested 5% of the landscape per decade; this suggests that gap phase replacement of senescent trees in combination with wind and fire disturbance may produce a disturbance regime similar to that associated with a 200-year timber rotation. Greater harvest levels (10% per decade) resulted in more uniform structure of small or large patches, for uneven- or even-aged management, respectively, than lesser levels of harvest (5% or no harvest); apparently reducing the effects of natural disturbances. Consequently, the even-aged management at the 10% level had the greatest core area and least amount of edge. Habitat suitability was greater, on average, for species dependent on characteristics of mature forests (ovenbird, gray squirrel) than those dependent on disturbance (prairie warbler, hooded warbler) and habitat suitability for disturbance dependent species was more sensitive to the management alternatives. The approach was data-rich and provided opportunities to contrast the large-scale, long-term consequences for management practices from many different perspectives. Crown Copyright (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.