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ALERT - December 4, 2006: Protect Our Woods joins allies to submit a response to the Draft Supplement to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the German Ridge Restoration Project in Hoosier National ForestPart 8b. Are Logging and Fire the Right Tools to Restore Oak Hickory?A professor from the University of Wisconsin, Rachel Carson, has shown that this is not the case:“Extensive overbrowsing by deer can impact oak regeneration by preventing oaks from establishing or entering the sapling size class (Carson et al. 2005).” She goes on to say, “Further, deer may preferentially browse in burned areas due to an increase in forage (Masters and others 1993). For example, Gordon and others (1995) found that oak seedling growth was lower in burned sites and attributed this to intense browsing by deer. Studying fire without explicitly considering the impact of browsing could lead to spurious conclusions.” In other words, the Forest Service has included one sentence to say that we needn’t worry about the deer interfering with oak hickory establishment after burns. However, Dr. Carson has devoted an entire research paper to this issue and the serious implications of deer browsing. The Forest Service quoted one sentence from the paper, but did not take the conclusion seriously. One must assume this is because if they did take Dr. Carson’s claims seriously, they wouldn’t be able to justify burning, which brings in many dollars into Forest Service budgets (Randal O’Toole, Reforming the Fire Service: An Analysis of Federal Fire Budgets and Incentives (Bandon, OR: Thoreau Institute, 2002), 53 pp.) Reading further into Dr. Carson’s paper, we not only find out that oak hickory saplings are especially delicious to the numerous deer in the Forest area, but that in fact the fires and subsequent browsing actually serves to favor beech maple, which is the very tree type the Forest Service is claiming that they DO NOT want to reappear on the landscape! “Only striped maple and red maple produced large sprouts following fire in the presence of deer browsing. Because sprouting is a major mechanism of regeneration in these forests, deer browsing has the potential to alter successional pathways following fire.” Furthermore: “Red maple saplings were very fire tolerant and sprouted prolifically even in the presence of deer herbivory. This suggests that the increase in red maple abundance in recent decades may be due not to fire suppression but due to red maple’s ability to tolerate deer herbivory.” “Our results demonstrate that prescribed fire can be very detrimental to sprouting of northern red oak saplings in mixed hardwood stands. Furthermore, prescribed fire in the presence of large deer populations prevented all commercial species from producing vigorous, tall sprouts, except red maple.” “Our findings only partially support the fire and oak hypothesis. Canopy northern red oaks were fire tolerant (i.e., had 100 percent survival), however, oak saplings were not fire tolerant and did not produce tall, vigorous sprouts following fire. Further, our findings demonstrate that deer browsing following fire can dramatically reduce regeneration via sprouting leading to communities dominated by striped maple.” So, the oak hickory fire theory continues to deteriorate as evidence mounts: That fire brings back oak-hickory forests is far from being a proven theory, and, even worse, fire actually works to select for the very species that the Forest Service is saying we must get rid of: Maple! Furthermore: “There is no question that understory northern red oaks can be fire tolerant via sprouting in some conditions. However, we found that topkilled northern red oak saplings did not produce tall, vigorous sprouts. This result demonstrates that northern red oak is not a ubiquitous sprouter in all conditions.” Now, on to the effects of logging on oak hickory: “Unlike browsing and fire, gaps did not alter the proportion of top-killed saplings that sprouted. This was surprising considering the number of published studies on the importance of gaps for many different modes of regeneration including seed germination, seedling and sapling growth, the role of epiphytes, and effects of vines (Canham 1985, Lorimer and others 1988.” And, “However, the role of gaps in sprouting is largely unstudied.” “Prescribed burning, herbicides, and cutting are all potentially viable methods of favoring oak regeneration by removing competitors, but evaluation of these methods in all regions of the Eastern United States is incomplete.” So, similar to fire prescriptions, logging prescriptions are also called into question. The Forest Plan prescribes a combination of fire and logging to bring back oak hickory forests. However, “Further, the effects of gaps did not interact with the effects of fire or deer browsing. Lastly, there were no significant species-specific effects of gaps on sprouting response regardless of fire treatment. This study demonstrates that gaps play little role in the initial sprouting responses of top-killed saplings in this system.” And what about the effects of competition from poplar, again not mentioned in the Forest Plan: “Complete canopy removal tends to release these tolerant species and hasten the replacement of oak. Yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is also less tolerant of fire than oak and can be a significant competitor in large openings created by harvests (Loftis 1990). Past research suggests that oak regeneration failures are more common on high-quality sites where competitors such as yellow-poplar and red maple (A. rubrum) have a competitive advantage over oaks (Oak 1993). Oak regeneration is often more successful on poor quality sites, where large root systems and other adaptations to drought give oak the advantage over these competitors (Abrams 1990).” And what about the effects of drought and global climate change on the change of forest composition over the past 50 years toward less oak hickory? A recent search of the literature shows that scientists have been doing studies and are concerned about the effect of drought and global climate change on oak hickory declines. However, the word drought and climate change and its possible effect on oak hickory composition is never once mentioned in the entire FEIS. From the literature (Climate Change Impacts on the United States The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change Overview: Forests By the National Assessment Synthesis Team, US Global Change Research Program Published in 2000.”) “However, forests may soon be facing rapid alterations in the nature of these disturbances as a consequence of climate change.” And, “Potential habitats that could possibly expand in the US are oak/hickory and oak/pine in the eastern US, and Ponderosa pine and arid woodland communities in the West. The effects of climate change on the rate and magnitude of disturbance (forest damage and destruction associated with fires, storms, droughts and pest outbreaks) will be an important factor in determining whether transitions from one forest type to another will be gradual or abrupt.” Click here for Are Logging and Fire the Right Tools to Restore Oak Hickory? Part 3 of 3Protect Our Woods
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