Restoration of Forest Landscape

ReForLan - Restoration of Forest Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation and Rural Development in the Drylands of Latin America

Project ReForLan aims to identify and promote approaches for the sustainable management of dryland forest ecosystems, by researching ecosystem restoration techniques using native species of economic value in Mexico, Chile and Argentina. The project directly addresses managing arid and semi-arid ecosystems, by undertaking a programme of multi-disciplinary research analyzing how restoration of degraded lands can be achieved in a way that mitigates the effects of unsustainable land use practices, contributes to conservation of biodiversity, and supports the development of rural livelihoods according to the ecosystem approach. ReForLan focuses on achieving a strong link between technological, management and policy research.

ReForLan proposes to use LANDIS to analyse landscape-scale dynamics of dryland forest ecosystems in order to assess the potential for natural recovery of dryland forest landscapes under different patterns of land use. Results will be used to inform priorities for restoration, and to support development of restoration plans for the study areas (southern Argentina; La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico; and Xalapa, Mexico). The model will also aid the development of scenarios, which will be used to inform recommendations for policy development and implementation focusing on restoration of dryland forests.

For further information: http://reforlan.bournemouth.ac.uk/ or gmyers@bournemouth.ac.uk

Improving Models of Forest Soil Carbon and Disturbance Interactions

Objectives: To better understand the nature, magnitude, and controls soil C and N in forests, including those in unmanaged and managed forests, and under land use change and urban environments. Key questions include the primary causes, rate controls, and longevity of the forest C sink and how this sink responds to changes in disturbance and management. We have incorporated the CENTURY belowground components into a LANDIS-II succession extension. We have modified the existing LANDIS-II aboveground biomass components as these components are compatible with existing disturbance extensions (e.g., fire, wind, harvesting) and have been applied throughout the U.S. The new succession extension (Century-succession) has been coded, tested, and is currently undergoing validation. Our initial application will address the effects of biofuel harvesting under different assumptions of atmospheric N deposition. In addition, a parallel project at UN-Reno is adapting LANDIS-II to simulate soil C, N, and P dynamics in the Lake Tahoe basin. For further information, contact rmscheller@consbio.org

Wildland Urban Interface modeling in the New Jersey Pinelands

Building on previous work in the Pinelands with LANDIS, I am working to integrate a dynamic landuse change aspect into LANDIS to account for the changes in fire regime and forest succession that occur in conjunction with landuse change. We hope to apply some of my results in a companion project using WX-BGC modified for the Pinelands landscape. This research is the focus of my Ph.D. dissertation at Rutgers University but I have been working with many people including my advisor Rick Lathrop, Zewei Miao at Rutgers Univ. Rob Scheller at the Conservation Biology Institute and Steve Van Tuyl, John Hom, Ken Clark and Nick Skowronski with the Northern Global Change Research Program USFS. Contact Inga P. La Puma for further information: iparker@crssa.rutgers.edu

Southern Sierra Nevada Fisher Assessment

The fisher (Martes pennanti) is a large member of the weasel family associated with dense, structurally complex, low- to mid-elevation forests. Remaining populations in the western U.S. are small, disconnected from one another, and threatened by habitat modification and fragmentation. In the Sierra Nevada, fishers currently occupy less than half their historic range, having apparently been extirpated from the central and northern Sierra. Forces that can reduce habitat value for fishers range from stand-replacing wildfires to management actions intended to preclude such fires by reducing the amount and continuity of forest fuels. The complex and probabilistic interplay between such habitat threats, as well as incomplete information on fisher biology, creates great uncertainty about the current health of the southern Sierran fisher population and how it is likely to change in the future. The Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) has therefore been commissioned by Region 5 of the U.S. Forest Service to compile all available data on fisher populations and habitat in the southern Sierra Nevada, assess their current status, and predict how they are likely to respond to various alternative forest management actions, as well as unmanaged events such as wildfires. We will assess how fisher habitat and populations are likely to change in the future due to fire and fuel treatments using LANDIS-II. For further information, contact Jim Strittholt (stritt@consbio.org).

Modeling insect defoliation outbreaks and their effects on carbon dynamics of forested landscapes

We are modeling the longterm effects of recurring defoliation outbreaks on carbon dynamics of forested landscapes in the central Appalachians and the Wisconsin pine barrens. We are developing a biomass defoliation module for this effort that will interact with the biomass succession extension in LANDIS-II. The research is part of a joint project sponsored by the NASA North American Carbon Program. The PI's include David Mladenoff, Rob Scheller, Brian Sturtevant and Phil Townsend. Collaborators on this project include Jane Foster (jrfoster@wisc.edu), Rob Scheller, David Mladenoff, and Brian Sturtevant.

Forest restoration planning and assessment for the Southern Pine Beetle and other invasive pest species

We are currently studying regeneration of forests after infestation by SPB and the restoration of landscape that have been damaged by the SPB. The specific objectives are (1) to adapt the LANDIS forest simulation model for use in SPB damage restoration planning and evaluation in the southern Appalachian Mountains and (2) to apply the LANDIS model and develop a SPB damage restoration plan that can be implemented in a sustainable forest management context. This research is a joint venture between the Knowledge Engineering Lab at Texas A&M University and the Ecology, Biology and Management of Bark Beetles and Invasive Forest Insects of Southern Conifers Unit of the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station. The PI's include Robert Coulson, Weimin Xi (xi@tamu.edu), John Waldron, Maria Tchakerian, David Cairns, and Charles Lafon. For further information, see http://landscape-restoration.tamu.edu/

Effects of potential climate trends on composition and landscape pattern in sub-boreal forests of North America and Siberia.

Our objective is to compare spatially-explicit predictions of forest composition and the spatial pattern of the forest mosaic in boreal and sub-boreal ecosystems of North America and Siberia under current and future climates using LANDIS-II. We will examine the Border Lakes region of Minnesota (USA) and the Ust’ Ilimsk region of Siberia. A fully factorial experiment will be conducted with three independent treatments. The climate treatment has two levels (current climate (mean temperature and precipitation) and future climate). The harvest treatment has two levels (no harvest, current harvest regime). The insect mortality treatment has three levels (current levels of insect mortality, less mortality and more mortality). The fire regime is modeled using a new fire extension based on the Canadian Fire Prediction System, and is not varied as a treatment effect, but is linked to climate by relationships among temperature, precipitation and fire duration. Fire also responds to the vegetation produced by the interactions among climate, succession, harvest activity and insect mortality. PIs? are Eric Gustafson and Brian Sturtevant (Northern Research Station), Anatoly Shvidenko and Ian McCallum? (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) and Rob Scheller (Conservation Biology Institute).

Interactions between forest management and disturbance regimes in the Border Lakes region

The Border Lakes region is a 5-million acre, forested landscape straddling the Minnesota-Ontario border. The region contains a large system of conservation reserves (Voyageurs National Park, Quetico Provincial Park, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness) surrounded by multiple-use lands under various ownership, resulting in complex patterns of forest resource use and fire management. As part of the Border Lakes Partnership, a multi-agency collaborative, we are researching long-term forest disturbance dynamics to determine regional-level effects of disparate timber harvest activities, various ecosystem restoration strategies, and contemporary natural disturbance regimes, especially fire. By simulating various management options, we will project future forest composition and wildfire probability, and we will identify collaborative, cross-boundary opportunities to restore forest ecosystems, reduce hazardous fuels, and conserve biodiversity. Funding is provided by the USDA Forest Service through the National Fire Plan, with significant resource matches from The Nature Conservancy and the Northern Research Station. Key collaborators include Doug Shinneman, Meredith Cornett, Brian Palik, and Mark White.

Assessment of stochastic and subject uncertainties in LANDIS predictions

We are conducting a study to quantify the uncertainty in LANDIS model predictions. The objectives of this study are to 1) explore the dynamics of subjective and stochastic uncertainty in the forest landscape simulation; 2) examine how stochastic uncertainty will affect subjective uncertainty; 3) make decisions about whether additional efforts should be made to increase model accuracy in our study based on the quantification of subjective uncertainty and stochastic uncertainty; and 4) quantify the individual contribution of uncertainty for model parameters in case that subjective uncertainty dominate the uncertainty in model simulation results. The research is being conducted at the University of Illinois by Chonggang Xu (xu4@uiuc.edu) and George Gertner (gertner@uiuc.edu).