Long-term changes in dead wood reveal new forest dynamics
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 19:04
in Earth & Climate
Forest managers must balance concerns for wildlife habitat with reducing the chance for damaging wildfires. Healthy forest ecosystems need dead wood to provide important habitat for birds and mammals, but there can be too much of a good thing when dead wood fuels severe wildfires. A scientist with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) compared historic and recent data from a forest in California's central Sierra Nevada region to determine how logging and fire exclusion have changed the amounts and sizes of dead wood over time. Results were recently published in Forest Ecology and Management.