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forest understory

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Broadcast burning has persistent, but subtle, effects on understory composition and structure: Results of a long-term study in western Cascade forests

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Approaches to forest management have changed markedly in the Pacific Northwest in recent decades, yet legacies of past management persist on the landscape. Following clearcut logging, woody residues were typically burned to reduce future fire hazard, create planting spots, facilitate natural recruitment, and retard growth of competing vegetation.

Burn severity and pre-fire seral state interact to shape vegetation responses to fire in a young, western Cascade Range forest

Year of Publication
2022
Publication Type

Wildfire size and frequency are increasing across the western U.S., affecting large areas of young, second-growth forest originating after logging and burning. Despite their prevalence in the western Cascade landscape, we have a poor understanding of how these young stands respond to fire or how their responses differ from older, undisturbed forests, which are well studied.

The effects of thinning and burning on understory vegetation in North America: A meta-analysis

Year of Publication
2017
Publication Type

Management in fire-prone ecosystems relies widely upon application of prescribed fire and/or fire-surrogate (e.g., forest thinning) treatments to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem function. The literature suggests fire and mechanical treatments proved more variable in their effects on understory vegetation as compared to their effects on stand structure.

Response of understory vegetation to salvage logging following a high-severity wildfire

Year of Publication
2016
Publication Type

Timber is frequently salvage-logged following high-severity stand-replacing wildfire, but the practice is controversial. One concern is that compound disturbances could result in more deleterious impacts than either disturbance individually, with mechanical operations having the potential to set back recovering native species and increase invasion by non-native species.