Abstract
How well does forestry in Ontario’s boreal forest emulate natural disturbances from the perspective of birds?
Highlights
Retention of biodiversity in human dominated landscapes is important for long-term conservation of species and ecosystems
We compared the relative abundance of forest landbirds at the stand level in mature forest (> 80 years old) with that in early-regenerating (0–20 years) and midregenerating (21–80 years) forests originating from fire or timber harvest across the boreal forest of Ontario using over 7000 point counts
27% (N = 1902) were conducted in early-regenerating stands, 32% (N = 2287) in midregenerating stands, and 41% (N = 2925) in mature stands; 66% (N = 4716) of the stations were in postfire stands while 34% (N = 2398) of the stations were in postharvest stands
Summary
Retention of biodiversity in human dominated landscapes is important for long-term conservation of species and ecosystems. Emulation of natural disturbance for biodiversity retention has become a key component of ecosystem-based forest management globally (e.g., Bunnell 1995, Perera and Buse 2004, Klenk et al 2008, Sibley et al 2012), including in the boreal forests across Canada (Senate Subcommittee on Boreal Forests 1999). This approach assumes that wildlife have adapted over time to forest disturbance resulting from wildfires and, to a lesser degree, insect outbreaks (Hunter 1993, Attiwill 1994, Haila et al 1994, Niemelä 1999). Recent broad-scale assessments suggest that emulation of natural disturbance regimes in northern forests may be generally succeeding in maintaining many ecosystem functions and biodiversity (e.g., Long 2009, Börger and Nudds 2014), though some important knowledge gaps remain (Kuuluvainen and Grenfell 2012, Brandt et al 2013)
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