IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Agee, J.K. | |
| Disturbance ecology of North American boreal Forests and associated northern mixed/subalpine Forests | |
| 2000 Book Chapter | |
It is clear that boreal forests, in addition to covering a wide geographic area, contain many unusual combinations of species and disturbance regimes. Few generalizations beyond broad climatic conditions apply over the large geographic range of boreal forests. Fire has been the primary natural disturbance in boreal forests, although its influence decreases in the eastern boreal region. Stand replacement disturbances are common and are often large with few islands. Across much of the boreal forest, insects and other disturbances generate small scale heterogeneity, although spruce budworm can create widespread epidemic mortality in the eastern boreal forest region. Fire disturbances tend to fit stochastic models well, although the specific parameters of the models may be difficult to fit. These models suggest that large proportions of young forest were characteristic of the boreal region but that fair amounts of quite old forest were part of the mosaic as well. These natural landscapes diverged significantly from even-aged silvicultural systems: fewer roads, more coarse woody debris, older age structures, and complex juxtaposition of different-aged stands. Post-fire successional sequences are very different in the taiga, eastern, midwest, and western forest types, particularly in the proportion of deciduous vegetation. Ecology is a science of place, and scientific recommendations for lynx will have to take the natural and cultural features and history of each boreal subregion into account. |
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