Notes and Research
Managing forest stands and landscapes for wildlife habitat
Stewardship activities pertaining to wildlife habitat must be a complex, adaptive process, affected by a multitude of contingencies, some of which land stewards can control, most of which we cannot. Among these contingencies are large-scale disturbance (like fire), climatic variation (drought or severe winter), systematic habitat destruction (due to subdivision and development), disease and population crashes, and other factors over which the landowner has no control.
In addition, various wildlife species respond differently to habitat conditions and seasons, and likewise, individuals within a group will vary in behavior. At the stand level, the needs of one species may conflict with the needs another. (For example, good elk cover requires dense thickets that make hunting difficult for the larger raptors.) Also, a species may have differing needs in relation to the season or activity (cover, feeding, or reproduction being the main categories). Elk, for example, require a mix of open forage for feeding and dense stands for thermal and hiding cover. Thus, large diverse areas are necessary for creating effective wildlife habitat.
To further complicate the task of wildlife stewardship, many species are highly mobile and routinely cross ownership boundaries. As a result, human activities on adjacent lands (or even lands in the general area) will affect and maybe disrupt the steward's wildlife objectives. Thus, larger management areas are more suitable for maintaining wildlife habitat.
An important consideration in attempts to plan for wildlife conservation and biological diversity is whether to plan for species richness (the broadest range of desired species) or for featured species (such as elk or an endangered species). In some situations, managing for species richness will conflict with managing for featured species, while in other situations, they can be commensurable. If the featured species has habitat needs that are general enough to agree with the habitat of several other species (or is an indicator species, frequently associated with other species in the same habitat), then the two approaches will be commensurable.
For example, the needs of elk and deer encompass a range of stand structures, from open ground to densely packed trees, and these structures must be in close proximity to each other and to water. Thus, the appropriate stand structures would include a higher density of edges and ecotones (transitions) adjacent to large areas of consistent stand structure. Such ecotones, particularly those resulting from natural or inherent edges, work well for many other species as well. In addition, elk prefer areas away from roads and people, so some stands should remain remote and relatively undisturbed. Since such privacy considerations are also important to the other larger mammals, stewardship for elk will benefit these species as well. In this case, a featured species approach is reconcilable with a species richness approach.
An important indicator of ecosystem wildlife health is the seasonal presence of migratory song-birds. Many bird species have evolved in direct relationship to historical stand structures. Due to the elimination of these structures due to logging and development, many species of song bird suffer the effects of severely diminished habitat, including population decline. Thus, the presence or lack of a bird species that should be prevalent is an indicator of the "naturalism" characterizing a stand.
Bibliography and Links
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