The Forest Ecosystem Study: background, rationale, implementation, baseline conditions, and silvicultural assessment.

Abstract

The Forest Ecosystem Study (FES) came about as an early response to the need for innovative silvicultural methods designed to stimulate development of late-successional attributes in managed forests—a need ensuing from the exceptional and longstanding controversies over old-growth forests and endangered species concerns in the Pacific Northwest. In 1991, scientists with the FES applied experimental, variable density thinning to even-aged Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirbel) Franco) forests on the Fort Lewis Military Reservation in western Washington after having first accumulated extensive baseline data on arboreal rodents, small mammals, trees and other vascular plants, and fungi. Since thinning, further research elements have been incorporated into the FES, including top rot fungal inoculation and soil food web response to thinnings, in addition to the ongoing prey base, vegetation, fungal, and silvicultural assessment investigations. We present study background, rationale, baseline conditions, and selected preliminary responses, as well as a silvicultural assessment of the variable-density thinning.

Citation

Carey, Andrew B.; Thysell, David R.; Brodie, Angus W. 1999. The Forest Ecosystem Study: background, rationale, implementation, baseline conditions, and silvicultural assessment. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-457. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 129 p