Kootenay Region Research Articles

Using forest structural diversity to inventory habitat diversity of forest-dwelling wildlife in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia

Forest planners in British Columbia are being asked to consider wildlife species diversity in forest development plans. Forest ecosystem inventories currently used in British Columbia are inappropriate or inadequate as tools for land management planning because they only document forest composition (Vegetation Resources Inventory) or identify plant communities (Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping). To assist in the effort to obtain information about a site's potential forest-dwelling wildlife species diversity, we developed a method of using forest structure to identify and evaluate habitat quality for multiple species of vertebrates. Using aerial photos, we delineated six classes of forest structure that have been identified by other researchers as important wildlife habitats. We selected five structural attributes of forest stands—vertical structure (canopy complexity), horizontal structure (forest patchiness), coarse woody debris density, litter and duff layer depth, and tree size—to be measured in the field, and we applied the method in three study areas in southeastern British Columbia. We compared abundance of structural features between structural classes to determine whether the classes were indeed unique. Old forests were found to be more structurally complex than younger forests, and forested and riparian sites were more structurally complex than non-forested and upland sites. We then used this data to index structural diversity within a study area to allow stands to be compared. We suggest that our method can be used by biologists and land managers to guide the conservation of forest-dwelling wildlife species.

JEM Readers respond

Congratulations on the success of your new BC Journalof Ecosystems and Management. We look forward tofuture issues on this important topic. However, webelieve there needs to be some clarification on therecently posted JEM article, “Using forest structuraldiversity to inventory habitat diversity of forest-dwellingwildlife in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia”by Kris McCleary and Garth Mowat [see pages 120–132]. The authors state that “forest ecosystem inventoriescurrently used in the province only document forestcomposition (Vegetation Resources Inventory) oridentify plant communities (Terrestrial EcosystemMapping) and are therefore inappropriate or inadequateas tools for land management planning.” Yet the methodssubsequently described for using forest structure asa means of inventorying forest-dwelling wildlife habitatappear to draw heavily on these existing provincialinventory standards for forest and ecosystem inventory.These inventories should have been correctly acknowledgedand referenced in McCleary and Mowat’s article.

Head Cook at Weddings and Funerals and Other Stories of Doukhobor Life by Vi Plotnikoff

366 Western American Literature one another as this collection of Kelton’s nonfiction, Elmer Kelton Country, admirably reveals. With a concisely helpful Foreword by Kelton critic Judy Alter, a brief autobiographical Introduction by novelist/journalist Kelton himself, and six main divisions—“Land and Water,”“Plows and Cows,”“Old-timers Remember,” “The Way It Was,” “Rodeo Life,” and “Writing About the West,” this indexed anthology demonstrates cogently why Kelton scholars have praised his fiction’s authenticity shaped by his convincing sense of place, his understated style, and his delightful humor. Kelton country is West Texas, typically a “low-rainfall, sandy, mesquite and greasewood area where livestock have to be a little lone­ some to do well,”a harsh place which a real estate agent described as “sorry as hell, but pretty good.” Yet this locale can be a caring place. Following the incredibly wet year of 1987, a 45-mile-wide grass fire destroyed 298,000 acres, and then strangers hauled in hay for livestock, “asking for nothing but direc­ tions.” Kelton’sunderstated reporting—“His roofat night was the open sky, which leaked, of course”; Ozuna’s 86-year-old Vic Pierce, on a cattle drive to San Angelo in his youth, “slipped into a West Concho dancehall but left through a window when the shooting started. The window was not open at the time”— shows the same kind of indirect style and humor so effective in Kelton’s novels. Including no references to women performers in his rodeo section and critical of some “self-styled environmentalists and historical revisionists,” his reporting of coyotes differs markedly from Richard Shelton’s in Going Back to Bisbee (1992). Kelton credits Rachel Bingham, who cooked for cowboys of the Spur Ranch for thirty-three years, for help in developing his character Lafey Dodge in TheDay the Cowboys Quit. For students ofKelton’sfiction, hisjournalis­ tic pieces often reveal sources for his realistic Westerns, and his capstone selection, “Fiction Writers Are Liars and Thieves,” offers excellent insight into how a writer works. It illustrates well novelist Robert Flynn’s observation: “Fic­ tion is changing the facts to tell the truth.” BOBJ. FRYE Texas Christian University Head Cook at Weddings and Funerals and Other Stories of Doukhobor Life. By Vi Plotnikoff. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Polestar Press, 1994. 206 pages, $14.95.) In 1899 the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy helped sponsor the emigration of Doukhobors to Canada and brought the plight of this pacifist religious sect to world attention. In Canada they remained in the spotlight because of the activities of a radical fringe that resorted to arson, bombings, and nude parades in order to draw attention to their beliefs and demands. Now, nearly a century Reviews 367 later, a descendant of that community has told the story from the point ofview of a young woman growing up a Doukhobor in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. Vi Plotnikoffs Head Cook at Weddings and Funerals is a collection of stories about Ana, a girl attempting to live within two cultures. Many of the stories incorporate materials from Doukhobor history including the “burning ofarms” in 1895 and the great migration of 1899, but what will engage most readers is watching Ana, a young woman in the late 1950s, negotiating that difficult territory where Russian and North American cultures touch each other and sometimes collide. There are familiar stories of the kind where Doukhobor children in Canada are discouraged from speaking their first language, where they feel ashamed of the borsch and sunflower seeds they enjoy, where they are teased, sometimes tormented, by their classmates: “When are you going to bomb the school, Douk?” There are stories where young people who fall in love outside the closely-knit community must forsake personal happiness and where some choose to leave their families and their traditions behind. But there are also sunny, happy stories where community life is its own reward and source of certain happiness. These are remembered sequences from the author’s per­ sonal and cultural history; they are recounted without bitterness and with the artistic simplicity and authenticity that in Canada we associate with the stories of Emily Carr. In this time when we are acutely conscious of ethnicity...

Effect of a smelter complex on the regional distribution of cadmium, lead and zinc in litters and soil horizons.

The distribution of cadmium, lead and zinc concentrations in litter and mineral soil horizons from the Kootenay region were studied to determine the effect of the 70-yr operation of the world's largest base-metals smelter complex at Trail, British Columbia. Metals were retained near the surface in litter and surface mineral horizons and concentrations in deepest horizons were lower and normal for uncontaminated soils. Metal concentrations in surface horizons were significantly related to distance from the smelter and site elevation in the mountainous region. Regression equation models to predict metal concentrations as functions of distance and/or elevation accounted for 69.8, 93.3 and 76.7% of variance in litter concentrations of Cd, Pb, and Zn, respectively, and 91.3, 50.6, and 64.0% of their variances in surface mineral horizons. In view of concomitant random distribution of metal concentrations in deepest horizons, these relationships and low Zn/Cd ratios in surface horizons nearest to the smelter indicated surface deposition of airborne smelter emissions was responsible for metal contamination of Trail area surface soils.

Age- and size-related response of lodgepole pine to inoculation with Europhium clavigerum

In 1970, 280 lodgepole pines between 8 and 140 years old, in the east Kootenay region of British Columbia, were inoculated with Europhium clavigerum. The resinous response of the tree to this inoculation was used as a measure of potential resistance to bark beetle attack. Trees between 31 and 50 years old had the greatest frequency of potentially resistant individuals. The following year, 250 trees between 10 and 120 years old were inoculated on June 11, July 5, and July 23, with similar results. The youngest (10–30) and oldest (91–120) trees had a greater decrease in frequency of resistant individuals, as the summer progressed, than the intermediate age classes. Trees rated as potentially resistant from all three inoculations had faster growth rates and thicker phloem than those rated nonresistant.

A shoot-blight disease of western larch in British Columbia

Encoeliopsis laricina (Ettlinger) Groves is shown to be the chief fungus associated with a shoot-blight disease of western larch (Larix occidentalis Nutt.) in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. Symptoms are described and biological characteristics of the fungus are given.

Biology of the Mountain Pine Beetle, Dendroctonus monticolae Hopkins, in the East Kootenay Region of British Columbia.: III. Interaction between the Beetle and its Host, with Emphasis on Brood Mortality and Survival

AbstractStudies were made on the distribution and survival of the mountain pine beetle over the lower stem of lodgepole pine. The relationship between density of attack and subsequent total length of egg galleries was examined as was the relationship between number of exit holes and number of emerging beetles. The influence on brood survival of tree diameter, density of egg galleries, moisture content of the outer sapwood, lethal temperatures, resinosis in the subcortical region, predators, and parasites is described. Survival is compared between broods established during different flights in the same year. The optimum weather conditions for brood survival are discussed.

Biology of the Mountain Pine Beetle, Dendroctonus monticolae Hopkins, in the East Kootenay Region of British Columbia II. Behaviour in the Host, Fecundity, and Internal Changes in the Female

This paper deals with the influence of bark moisture and temperature on the hehaviour of the egg-laying female within the host. Fecundity of the insect will he discussed, as well as internal changes associated with the behavioural pattern. The life-cycle, brood development, and time of flight was described in Part I of the present series. The behaviour during mating, egg laying, and gallery construction were described earlier (Reid 1958b).

The Behaviour of the Mountain Pine Beetle, Dendroctonus monticolae Hopk., During Mating, Egg Laying, and Gallery Construction

The biology of the mountain pine beetle was studied in 1956 and 1957 near Invermere, in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia. The host tree was lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia Engelm.). The technique used permitted direct observation of mating, egg laying, and gallery construction. The sex ratio was also investigated under natural conditions and in cages. The most important previous work on the biology of this insect was done by De Leon, Bedard, and Terrell (1934).