Soils and Woody Debris

This study evaluates the consumption of coarse woody debris in various states of decay. Samples from a northern Idaho mixed-conifer forest were classified using three different classification methods, ignited with two different ignition methods and consumption was recorded.

Reducing stand density is often used as a tool for mitigating the risk of high-intensity crown fires. However, concern has been expressed that opening stands might lead to greater drying of surface fuels, contributing to increased fire risk. The objective of this study was to determine whether woody fuel moisture differed between unthinned and thinned mixed-conifer stands.

Understanding effects of changes in ecological disturbance regimes on soil properties, and capacity of soil properties to resist disturbance, is important for assessing ecological condition.

Practices such as thinning followed by prescribed burning, often termed ‘ecosystem restoration practices’, are being used in Rocky Mountain forests to prevent uncontrolled wildfire and restore forests to pre-settlement conditions. Prior to burning, surface fuels may be left or collected into piles, which may affect fire temperatures and attendant effects on the underlying soil.

Early seral forest habitats are increasingly valued for the unique structural resources they provide in many western US forests. Coarse woody detritus (CWD) are a significant feature of this developmental stage and are highly dynamic, suggesting these environments exhibit temporally diverse structural conditions prior to forest canopy closure.

Mechanical fuel reduction treatments have been implemented on millions of hectares of western North American forests. The redistribution of standing forest biomass to the soil surface by mulching treatments has no ecological analog, and this practice may alter soil processes and forest productivity.

In 2002, the Biscuit Wildfire burned a portion of the previously established, replicated conifer unthinned and thinned experimental units of the Siskiyou Long-Term Ecosystem Productivity (LTEP) experiment, southwest Oregon. Charcoal C in pre and post-fire O horizon and mineral soil was quantified by physical separation and a peroxide-acid digestion method.

This paper compares carbon (C) and nutrient contents in soils (Alfisols derived from andesite), forest floor and vegetation in a former fire (1960) and an adjacent forest in the Sagehen Watershed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

The extent to which terrestrial ecosystems can sequester carbon to mitigate climate change is a matter of debate.

Restoration practices incorporating timber harvest (e.g. to remove undesirable species or reduce tree densities) may generate unmerchantable wood debris that is piled and burned for fuel reduction. Slash pile burns are common in longleaf pine ecosystem restoration that involves hardwood removal before reintroduction of frequent prescribed fire.