[MCN] Forest recovery difficult after selective logging

[Meredith Printz]

Hello!

Thank you for your email! I'm sorry I've missed you. The Missoula Community Foundation office will be closed from September 30-October 2nd, as we will be at the Montana Nonprofit Association Conference. When I return, I will respond to your email as soon as possible. 

Thank you for touching base and have a great day.

Meredith Printz
Executive Director
(406) 552-7347

On Sep 30, 2015, at 11:42 AM, Lance Olsen via Missoula-Community-News <missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:

> Forest Ecology and Management, 1 December 2015, Pages 10-21
> 
> Selective logging: Do rates of forest turnover in stems, species composition and functional traits decrease with time since disturbance? - A 45 year perspective
> Oyomoare L. Osazuwa-Peters et al
> doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2015.08.002
> 
> Highlights
> 
> *Succession theory predicts changes in forest attributes after selective logging.
> *Stems, species, and functional trait change should decline approaching unlogged steady state.
> *Selective logging resulted in persistently higher turnover rates in Kibale's forest.
> *Turnover rates did not decline and were also high in unlogged forests.
> *Ongoing forest-wide disturbance may limit recovery from selective logging.
> Abstract- (bold emphasis added)
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112715004181
> 
> Selective logging, the targeted harvesting of timber trees in a single cutting cycle, is globally rising in extent and intensity. Short-term impacts of selective logging on tropical forests have been widely investigated, but long-term effects on temporal dynamics of forest structure and composition are largely unknown. Understanding these long-term dynamics will help determine whether tropical forests are resilient to selective logging and inform choices between competing demands of anthropogenic use versus conservation of tropical forests. Forest dynamics can be studied within the framework of succession theory, which predicts that temporal turnover rates should decline with time since disturbance. Here, we investigated the temporal dynamics of a tropical forest in Kibale National Park, Uganda over 45 years following selective logging. We estimated turnover rates in stems, species composition, and functional traits (wood density and diameter at breast height), using observations from four censuses in 1989, 1999, 2006, and 2013, of stems 10 cm diameter within 17 unlogged and 9 logged 200 ? 10 m vegetation plots. We used null models to account for interdependencies among turnover rates in stems, species composition, and functional traits. We tested predictions that turnover rates should be higher and decrease with increasing time since the selective logging event in logged forest, but should be less temporally variable in unlogged forest. Overall, we found higher turnover rates in logged forest for all three attributes, but turnover rates did not decline through time in logged forest and was not less temporally variable in unlogged forest. These results indicate that successional models that assume recovery to pre-disturbance conditions are inadequate for predicting the effects of selective logging on the dynamics of the tropical forest in Kibale. Selective logging resulted in persistently higher turnover rates, which may compromise the carbon storage capacity of Kibale's forest. Selective logging effects may also interact with effects from other global trends, potentially causing major long-term shifts in the dynamics of tropical forests. Similar studies in tropical forests elsewhere will help determine the generality of these conclusions. Ultimately, the view that selective logging is a benign approach to the management of tropical forests should be reconsidered in the light of studies of the effects of this practice on long-term forest dynamics.
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