John A. Litvaitis - Case Study From Our Neighbors in the Eastern U.S.

1. Do natural disturbance regimes provide realistic guidelines for managing early-successional habitats in New England forests?

2. Major forest types in northern U.S. Lull (1968)

5. ~ 1880

6. ~ 1930 >50% of forest vertebrates utilize early-successional stands

8. Obligate users RELATIVE USE 0 1.0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 AGE OF STAND 0.5

9. Golden-winged warbler USGS

10. FOREST CLEARING FARM ABANDONMENT FOREST MATURATION Relative abundance of early-successional habitats RETURN TO PRE-COLUMBIAN CONDITIONS ?

11. How much was there?

12. source: Harvard Forest

14. Large-scale fires infrequent in New England, ~800-1,200 years 1790 survey in NY found that 1% of landscape burned or open.

15. Small-scale wind storms: kill one to several trees. In eastern U. S., 0.2- 2%/year of all forests are affected by wind throw. At any time, 5-50% of a forest may be affected.

16. Large-scale wind storms: hurricanes or tornadoes at irregular intervals (1635, 1788, 1815, 1938, and 1944). 1938 hurricane affected >240,000 ha in New England Boose et al. (2001)

17. Approximate return interval of damaging (F2) hurricanes in New England. Boose et al. (2001) 85 yr 150 yr 380 yr >380 yr

19. Wilson 2005 Lumber Exports (Wilson 2005) vs Witness Trees Projections (Lorimer 1977): very different estimates of the prominence of white pine (>10x), indicating a large difference in the frequency and scale of disturbance in these forests.

20. Northern Hardwoods seedling/sapling (1-15 yrs): 1-3% young pole (15-30 yrs): 1-3% 2-6% Pitch Pine- Scrub Oak seedling/sapling: 10-30% young pole: 10-30% 20-60% (Lorimer and White 2003)

21. Trani et al. (2001) Early-successional forests in the eastern U.S. 9% 4%

22. What About Biotic Disturbances?

23. Contemporary Herbivores

24. flooded forest pond wet meadow shrubs forest

25. Open water areas created by beaver dams on the Kabetogama Peninsula, northern MN . 1940: 1% of area 1986: 13% of area Johnston and Naiman (1990) How large an area affected?

26. Northern Hardwoods seedling/sapling 1-3% young pole 1-3% beaver flowages ~ 3.5% (Gotie and Jenks 1982) 5-11% (Lorimer and White 2003)

27. Even if we can accurately estimate HRNV, are these values relevant in contemporary landscapes?

28. 40/mi 2 1100/mi 2 POPULATION DENSITY

29. Hoving (2001) Road Density in the Northeast

34. 0 20 40 60 80 100 COMPOSITION (%) 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 RACCOON/CANID TRACKS CANIDS RACCOONS LANDSCAPE FOR DEV AGR

35.  2.5 ha  5 ha Winter mortality: Patches 69% 35%

36. OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY FOOD QUALITY LARGE PATCHES SMALL PATCHES THRESHOLD? CONDITION-SENSITIVE PREDATION

37. 9 JAN 16 JAN 23 JAN 30 JAN 6 FEB 13 FEB 20 FEB 27 FEB 6 MAR 13 MAR 20 MAR 27 MAR 3 APR 10 APR 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 UN:C RATIO 4 3 3 3 4 5 6 3 2 5 13 11 13 13 12 6 2 9 7 7 8 5 5 5 8 5 4 4

38. New approaches needed to provide habitat

39. Parcelization or Fragmentation potential to mimic natural disturbances restoration of shrublands/ modified disturbance regime (“sliding scale”) modified disturbances (large and clustered/connected) limited extreme Forest Age young old

40. MANAGING INDUCED METAPOPULATIONS: may require deviating from HRNV ME NH VT NY MA CT RI

44. DESCRIBING HABITAT DISTURBANCES Size Frequency Intensity

46. Do natural disturbance regimes provide realistic guidelines for managing early-successional habitats in New England forests?

48. Human-generated disturbances

49. Pisgah Forest in southwestern New Hampshire three years after 1938 hurricane.