Abstract
Forest inventory data provide simple indicators of forest structural diversity in the form of forest age distributions and their change over time. A result of past land use and disturbance, more than half of the 51 million ha of forest in the Central Hardwood Region is between 40 and 80 years old and young forest up to 10 years old constitutes only 5.5% of the area. Simulations of a sustained level of management over time produce more uniform (flatter) age-class distributions. A management scenario designed to maintain about 7% of total forest area as young habitat results in a region-wide young forest deficit of one million ha relative to current conditions. However, management activities that create an average of 200 ha of additional young forest per county per year would be sufficient to erase that deficit.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Literature Cited
Backs SE (2010) 2010 spring breeding indices of ruffed grouse. Wildlife management and research notes No. 998, Indiana Division Fish and Wildlife, Indianapolis
Baltimore County (2005) Baltimore county forest sustainability strategy, steering committee final draft. Baltimore County, 128 p. Accessed 23 Sept 2010
Carpenter C (2007) Forest sustainability assessment for the Northern United States. NA-TP-01-07CD. USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry, Newtown Square
Cooper TR, Parker K (2010) American woodcock population status, 2010. USDI Fish and Wildlife Service, Laurel
Eyre FH (ed) (1980) Forest cover types of the United States and Canada. Soc Amer For, Washington, DC
Forest Inventory and Analysis (2010a) Data and tools. USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC. http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/tools-data/default.asp. Accessed 23 Sept 2010
Forest Inventory and Analysis (2010b) Forest inventory and analysis national program. USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC. http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/. Accessed 23 Sept 2010
Haufler JB, Melh CA, Roloff GJ (1996) Using a coarse-filter approach with species assessment for ecosystem management. Wildl Soc Bull 24:200–208
He HS, Mladenoff DJ (1999) Spatially explicit and stochastic simulation of forest-landscape fire disturbance and succession. Ecology 80:81–99
He HS, Li W, Sturtevant BR, Yang J, Shang ZB, Gustafson EJ, Mladenoff DJ (2005) LANDIS 4.0 users guide. LANDIS: a spatially explicit model of forest landscape disturbance, management, and succession. Gen Tech Rep NC-263, USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station, St. Paul
Helms JA (1998) The dictionary of forestry. Soc Amer For, Bethesda
Johnson PS, Shifley SR, Rogers R (2009) The ecology and silviculture of oaks, 2nd edn. CABI Publishing, Wallingford/Oxfordshire
Landres PB, Morgan P, Swanson FJ (1999) Overview of the use of natural variability concepts in managing ecological systems. Ecol Appl 9:1179–1188
Mladenoff DJ, He HS (1999) Design and behavior of LANDIS, an object oriented model of forest landscape disturbance and succession. In: Mladenoff DJ, Baker WL (eds) Advances in spatial modeling of forest landscape change: approaches and applications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Miles PD (2010) Forest inventory EVALIDator web-application version 4.01 beta. USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, St. Paul. http://fiatools.fs.fed.us/Evalidator4/tmattribute.jsp. Accessed 1 Nov 2010
National Archives and Records Administration (2007) The president: executive order 13423 – strengthening federal environmental, energy, and transportation management. USA Federal Register, 26 Jan 2007, 3919–3923
Oliver CD, Larson BC (1990) Forest stand dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York
Rittenhouse CD, Dijak WD, Thompson III FR, Millspaugh JJ (2007) Development of landscape-level habitat suitability models for ten wildlife species in the Central Hardwoods Region. Gen Tech Rep NRS-4, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, Newtown Square
Sauer JR, Hines JE, Fallon J (2008) The North American breeding bird survey, results and analysis 1966–2007. Version 15 May 2008. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel
Schulte LA, Mitchell RJ, Hunter ML Jr, Franklin JF, McIntyre RK, Palik BJ (2006) Evaluating the conceptual tools for forest biodiversity conservation and their implementation in the US. For Ecol Manage 232:1–11
Shifley SR, Thompson FR III, Dijak WD, Larson MA, Millspaugh JJ (2006) Simulated effects of forest management alternatives on landscape structure and habitat suitability in the Midwestern United States. For Ecol Manage 229:361–377
Smith WB, Miles PD, Perry CH, Pugh SA (2009) Forest resources of the United States, 2007. Gen Tech Rep GTR-WO-78, USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC
Spencer Jr JS (1969) Indiana’s timber. Res Bull NC-7, USDA Forest Service North Central Forest Experiment Station, St. Paul
Tirpak JM, Jones-Farrand DT, Thompson III, Twedt DJ (2009) Multi-scale habitat suitability index models for priority landbirds in the Central Hardwoods and West Gulf Coastal Plain/Ouachitas bird conservation regions. Gen Tech Rep NRS-49, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, Newtown Square
Twedt DJ, Tirpak JM, Jones-Farrand DT, Thompson FT III, Uihlein WB III, Fitzgerald JA (2010) Change in avian abundance predicted from regional forest inventory data. For Ecol Manage 260:1241–1250
USDA Forest Service (1953) Forest statistics of Indiana. Forest survey release No. 15, USDA Forest Service Central States Forest Experiment Station, Columbus
USDA Forest Service (2004) National report on sustainable forests – 2003. FS-766, USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC
USDA Forest Service (2010) National woodland owner survey. USDA Forest Service, Washington. http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/nwos/. Accessed 31 Oct 2010
Woodall C, Hansen M, Brand G, McRoberts R, Gallion J, Jepsen E (2006) Indiana’s forests 1999–2003 (Part B). Res Bull NC-253B, USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station, St. Paul
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, New York
Acknowledgements
Forest Inventory and Analysis personnel from the US Forest Service spent 60 years collecting the data we analyzed in this study. Bill Dijak was instrumental in the analysis and mapping of the landscape-scale disturbance scenarios and associated wildlife habitat suitability indices. Two anonymous reviewers provided valuable suggestions that improved an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank them all.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shifley, S.R., Thompson, F.R. (2011). Spatial and Temporal Patterns in the Amount of Young Forests and Implications for Biodiversity. In: Greenberg, C., Collins, B., Thompson III, F. (eds) Sustaining Young Forest Communities. Managing Forest Ecosystems, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1620-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1620-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1619-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1620-9
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)