Bottomland hardwood forest recovery following tornado disturbance and salvage logging
Introduction
Publicly-owned conservation areas of the Midwestern and Midsouthern United States typically occupy low-lying areas and maintain some semblance of the pre-settlement hydrologic regime in this largely privately-owned and agriculture-dominated landscape. Therefore, these remnant tracts play a rare, important, and widely-recognized role in providing biological conservation values and recreational opportunities. Following decades of highly variable hydrologic conditions, fire, and agriculture-related practices, these areas are typically dominated by several decades-old stands of mixed species bottomland hardwood forests (Nelson et al., submitted for publication). Uncontrollable natural disturbance on these typically passively managed sites, such as wind events, can drastically alter stand structure and create rare opportunities for the development of a new regeneration cohort (King and Allen, 1996). Following such disturbances managers must determine appropriate course of action to ensure that conservation and public access management objectives are satisfied (Meadows and Stanturf, 1997). These activities, especially partial salvage logging, often represent a departure from decades of typically passive management.
Presently, the most relevant literature to guide management decision making under these circumstances is sparse, associated with conventional commodity harvests, and focused on timber values. Wind disturbance creates variable canopy openness conditions in forests, depending on swath and intensity of the storm event, to which vegetation responds (Peterson and Pickett, 1991, Foster and Boose, 1992). Tornadoes can produce an array of stand conditions, ranging from undisturbed canopy to release of shade-tolerant advance reproduction in small gaps to total overstory removal with production of a new cohort of shade-intolerant species, all on a very fine spatial scale (Webb, 1989, Battaglia et al., 1999, Battaglia and Sharitz, 2005, Conner and Sharitz, 2005). Downed material can alter soil microsites through organic matter accumulation and debris dam formation. Further, downed and hanging material can make wind impacted sites inaccessible for public use and therefore incompatible with typical bottomland hardwood forest management objectives.
The effects of harvesting on bottomland forest regeneration are similar to wind disturbance in that density, species richness, and regeneration of desired tree species increase as a function of disturbance intensity (Reisinger et al., 1988, Aust et al., 1992, Jansson and Johansson, 1998). Across a range of sites, regenerated stands were similar in composition to those occupying the site prior to wind or harvesting disturbance (Peterson and Pickett, 1995, Battaglia et al., 1999, Aust et al., 2006). Aust et al. (1997) and Hassan and Roise (1998) found that following harvesting on bottomland sites, regeneration was adequate in skidded areas. Although salvage operations superficially resemble conventional regeneration harvests, often there is variation in traffic patterns and skidding intensity between these types of harvesting operations, and therefore resulting regeneration and soil recovery may differ.
An F4 tornado in May 2003 damaged a large swath of bottomland hardwood forest managed as a wetlands wildlife conservation area in southern Illinois, USA. Some of the disturbed areas were subjected to partial salvage logging of downed trees, resulting in a wide range of disturbances to canopy and soils. The primary objectives of this study were to assess vegetation regeneration response and determine whether early recovery trajectories differed among undisturbed, wind-disturbed, and wind + salvage areas.
Section snippets
Study site
The study area is within the Mermet Lake State Conservation Area in Massac County, Illinois (37°15′25″N, 88°50′30″W). The climate is considered continental with a 190-day growing season. The site is on the historic floodplain of the Ohio River and within the Mississippi embayment. Soils are predominantly Cape (fine, smectitic, acid, mesic, Vertic Endoaquepts) and Karnak (fine, smectitic, non-acid, mesic, Vertic Endoaquepts) and Ginat (fine-silty, mixed, active, mesic, Typic Endoaqualfs) series.
Results
Total stem density increased through the study period for all vegetation disturbance types except in undisturbed areas, and density of potential overstory species increased in all vegetation disturbance types (Table 1). Total woody stem density was positively associated with disturbance intensity. Stem densities were significantly higher in the wind areas than all other disturbance types, and densities in wind + salvage areas were significantly higher than the undisturbed area in year 1. By year
Discussion
The tornado and salvage logging represented a drastic and rapid departure from previous decades of uninterrupted low intensity disturbance and associated forest dynamics. Three years after these events, the developing stand was dominated by a diverse, fully stocked mosaic of bottomland species and stand structures varying as a function of disturbance intensity and damage (Battaglia et al., 1999, Battaglia and Sharitz, 2005). The degree of canopy removal, ranging from undisturbed through
Conclusion
A diverse mosaic of site and vegetation conditions characterized this post-tornado bottomland landscape. Varying levels of wind damage appear likely to produce lasting impacts on overstory composition. On the wind + salvage areas, visual impacts of logging operations were converging toward soil disturbance class 0 during the course of the study. Although not definitive, key bottomland hardwood tree and shrub species regeneration appeared to respond differentially to salvage logging. Post-tornado
Acknowledgements
Funding for this research was provided by Illinois Department of Natural Resources with special thanks to David Allen and Chris McGinness. Additional supported was provided through U.S.D.A. McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Program. We would like to acknowledge and thank Jessica Yeagle, Mike Long, and Kenny Ruzicka for their assistance in collecting the field data. We also extend our thanks and appreciation to Emile Gardiner and Steve Meadows for reviewing and providing suggestions on an
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