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Scientia silvica extension series, no. 3

Forest Sciences Department, University of British Columbia

One of the human activities impacting biodiversity is the cutting of old-growth forests. In response to the controversy surrounding the cutting of old-growth in the coastal rainforest of BC, the Ministries of the Environment and Forests have produced biodiversity guidelines that are to be applied when manipulating stands in the provincial forest. This study augments these guidelines by investigating the diversity differences between second-growth and old-growth forests in relation to site quality. We demonstrate how standlevel plant diversity differs between 40-year-old and old-growth stands in the Very Wet Coastal Western Hemlock subzone (CWHvm) on Vancouver Island. This information is intended to provide foresters with an understanding of the effects of age, disturbance and site quality on stand-level plant diversity, thereby allowing for informed professional management decisions.

West Coast hemlock; Biodiversity; Plant diversity; Forest site quality; Plant succession; Understory plants; Old growth forest ecology; Forest biodiversity; Forest ecology

Text

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0107245

Forestry, Faculty of; Forest Sciences, Department of

Faculty