"Logging – What it is"
With respect to the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project
I use the Allegheny National Forest Present Plans as a guide to address this question.
From time to time maybe people think logging should be
reduced, some think it should stop commercially on federal public land such
as ANF. Some people think logging should increase. But no one has explained
to me – what logging is. Never in the history of humankind have so many people
talked and written so much about what they know so little about- the environment
(Shigo, 1999 pg 104). In order to choose sides, one might want to know what
it is, i.e. logging. Fungi speaking, in conversation with Dr. Don Marx, a
claim was made that we know less than 10% of what we need to know. In this
paper here is some of what we do know.
John A. Keslick, Jr., Tree Biologist, Tree Biological Laboratory,
Allegheny Defense Project; Keslick and Son Modern Arboriculture
West Chester, P.A. 19380 USA
Phone 610-696-5353
1. In this paper I am focusing on the false premise that symplastless
trees are dead, and non ecologically functioning biomass. I will discuss
symplast containing trees in another paper.
2. I would like to eliminate the method of logging in this paper.
Just to simply and add understanding, lets just look at removal technique
as by snapping your fingers and they would be removed rather than horse,
skidders, helicopters, etc.
3. Ice storms now leaving only trees not desired for lumber.
Not so bad for the forest. Steel frame house stand better in the storms
we are having like Hurricane Andrew.
4. Removal, of woody debris, from streams or forests, in the name of
economic progress is common. But, the question is what are the short-term
and long-term biological consequences? (Maser and Trappe, 1984)
5. Many insects, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms are thought to
be harmful, yet very few of them are (SHIGO, 1999). The insects and
microorganisms have a job to do on earth. Many are "clean up" experts such
as the fungus that parasitizing another mushroom fruiting body of another
fungus (SHIGO, 1999 - Pg 105). These organisms break down dead organisms
to release or recycle elements essential for new life. Some organisms attack
others that no longer have a defense system. A few attack living organisms
that are healthy. In spite of abiotic destructive forces and biotic
agents such as insects, bacteria, and fungi, humans still rank as the major
destructive agent for trees in forests and cities. Ignorance of tree biology
is a major cause of this (SHIGO 1999).
6. What are woody debris and what key roles or functions do they perform?
7. Logging is removing a critical component of ecosystem processes
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
8. Logging is removing material that supports physical, chemical, and
biological functions in ecosystems These functions include essential element
cycling, carbon storage, erosion control and slope stabilization, water cycling,
soil formation, and stream movement processes (Voller and Harrison,
1998).
9. Logging reduces the organic parent material (duff and woody residues)
available for soil-formation processes (Harvey, Larsen and Jurgensen, 1976)
10. Logging is removing the needs for many insects, animals, fungi,
plants, bacteria, water, etc.
11. Many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent on symplastless
trees for nutrients, essential elements, habitat or substrate and nesting
(Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
12. Logging is removal of a major component of a complex network of
simultaneously developing minisystems-all interdependent (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 19-par 5).
13. Logging is the removal of a long term, stabilizing force within
the forest (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 19-par 5).
14. Logging removes a major component of a complex network of simultaneously
developing minisystems-all interdependent. Ausmus ( 1977) stated the
impact simply: “. ..wood decomposition represents a long-term
stabilizing force within the forest” (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 19-par 5).
15. Logging is the removal of large materials, which would offer multitudes
of both external and internal habitats that change and would have persisted
through decades. One needs an understanding of the synergistic affects
of constant small changes within a persistent large structure to appreciate
the dynamics of a fallen tree and its function in an ecosystem (Maser and
Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 1).
16. Logging is removing structural components of great importance for
forest dynamics and forest biodiversity. The decomposition of trees
provides an important link in cycling on nutrients in ecosystems. In
addition, many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent on symplastless
trees for salts of essential elements, nutrients, habitat and or substrate
and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
17. Logging is removing the needs of scavenger as well as competitors,
which have enzyme (keys) systems. Also removes the essential needs
of fungi involved in this activity, which are often mutually antagonistic,
so that a given part of the tree may be occupied by only one fungus that
excludes others by physical or chemical means (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
(We call this altered area a niche)
18. Logging is removing a mass - that harbor a myriad of organisms,
from bacteria and actinomycetes to higher fungi. The smaller organisms,
not visible to the unaided eye, are still important components of the system
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg16-par 5).
19. Logging is removing the capacity to accumulate moisture – carry
essential elements and reduces essential element capital for the soil.
(Maser and Trappe, 1984).
20. Logging is the removal of symplastless and symplast containing
trees which were linked together in the living machinery of a forest (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
21. Logging is removing habitats and niches for free-living bacteria
which in woody residues and soil wood fix 30-60% of the nitrogen in the forest
soil. Symplastless wood in terrestrial ecosystems is a primary location
for fungal colonization and often acts as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during
ecosystem disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza
1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
22. We must look at not only the visual mass, which is being removed,
or the board feet in which it may become or the landfill in which it will
end up, but also the biological functions and processes, which the mass would
have performed above as well as below ground. In other words we are
not just removing a functionless dead piece of material.
23. So with that said, the question is “What chemicals, functions and
processes are being removed”? Then we must look over time.
24. CWD plays an important role in the functioning of ecosystems. Its
functional role in stream ecosystems has been well established and many stream
restoration projects are underway. Its role in terrestrial ecosystems is
still not completely understood (Edmonds and Marra, 1999).
25. We cannot take one topic or organism in the forest and put it
in a little box. It all flows in the other boxes by connections.
This is the way it is. I have tried to cover some topics of a forest
– parts / processes. A forest is like a spiders web. You cannot
expect to touch any one part without affecting the entire web. Logging
is removing some of the most massive longest-lived parts of the system while
depleting underground components. No other single organism on this
planet houses more organisms than trees. Trees are unique whereas the
dead still contribute to the living.
1. Standing or Fallen Symplastless Trees - Dead or Alive? Pg 5
2. Logging – Water / Moisture Pg 6
3. Logging – Nutrients and Essential Elements Pg 9
4. Logging – With Respect to Browsing and Sensitive Plants Pg 16
5. Logging - Plant Bio-Diversity / Threatened and Endangered Species Pg 19
6. Logging – Fungi Diversity – Mycorrhizae – Bacteria / Endangered Species
Pg 24
7. Logging – Animals / Endangered Species Pg 33
8. Logging – Temperature Pg 40
9. Logging – Other Habitat and Potential Niches Pg 41
10. Logging – Insects – Bonogens / Endangered Species Pg 47
11. Logging – Humic Acids, Horizons, Buffers and pH Pg 49
12. Logging – Soil Erosion – Soil Mixing - Churning Pg 54
13. Logging – Present to Future Wood Quality Pg 56
14. Logging – Some Recommendations Made Pg 57
15. Logging - Space Pg 62
16. Logging – Fire Protection Pg 63
26. My point is as follows: See that plane flying above?
Is it dead or alive? The answer is “yes”. See that fallen
or standing symplastless tree? Is it alive or dead? Again, “yes”.
In contrast, a symplastless tree or log includes a considerable number of
living cells, as much 35% of the biomass may be live fungal cells (Franklin,
Shugart and Harmon, 1987, pg 551). I.e., internally. KEY WORD
“BIOMASS”
27. We have no word for a substance that is both living and dead -
wood, soil (Shigo, 1999, #214 pg 34).
28. Trees connect living and dead cells in ways so that the dead parts
still benefit the entire tree (SHIGO, 1999).
29. Here are some points regarding this topic. Surely there is
much more.
30. We document that a large symplastless tree is not a wasted resource;
indeed, it continues to function as an important part of a terrestrial or
water system, either while remaining on the site at which it once grew, or
by becoming a structural part of an aquatic or marine habitat. We aim to
help anyone interested in perpetual forest productivity to understand the
importance of large, symplastless woody debris. The book develops certain
principles and ideas in sequence from the forest to the sea (Maser, Tarrant,
Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
31. Fallen trees harbor a myriad of organisms, from bacteria and actinomycetes
to higher fungi. Of these, only some of the fungi might be noticed
by the causal observer as mushrooms or bracket fungi. These structures,
however, are merely the fruiting bodies produced by mold colonies within
the log. Many fungi fruit within the fallen tree, so they are seen
only when the tree is torn apart. Even when a fallen tree is torn apart,
only a fraction of the fungi present are noticed because the fruiting bodies
of most appear only for a small portion of the year. The smaller organisms,
not visible to the unaided eye, are still important components of the system
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg16-par 5).
32. The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water, and essential
elements between a fallen tree and its surroundings increases as decomposition
continues (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
33. Fallen trees offer multitudes of both external and internal habitats
that change and yet persist through the decades. One needs an understanding
of the synergistic affects of constant small changes within a persistent
large structure to appreciate the dynamics of a fallen tree and its function
in an ecosystem (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 1).
34. The so called symplastless, still standing, tree still continues
to serve several natural functions important to many groups of organisms
of the once fertile forest or tree system.
35. Eventually the tree falls: the wood is in contact with the
soil, again providing another unique ecological situation. Some species such
as American chestnut would have served ecological system survival duties
for 50 years or more (SHIGO, 1969).
36. As fallen trees progress from decay class I to class II, the scavengers
are replaced by competitors with the enzyme systems needed to decompose the
more complex compounds in wood. The fungi involved in this activity are often
mutually antagonistic, so that a given part of the tree may be occupied by
only one fungus that excludes others by physical or chemical means (Maser
and Trappe, 1984). (We call this altered area a niche)
37. Bacteria are very small. They do big things (Shigo, 1999, #216
pg34)
38. Free-living bacteria in woody residues and soil wood fix 30-60%
of the nitrogen in the forest soil. In addition, 20% of soil nitrogen is
stored in these components (Harvey et al. 1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported
that CWD accounted for as much as 45% of aboveground stores of organic matter.
Symplastless wood in terrestrial ecosystems is a primary location for fungal
colonization and often acts as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem
disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
39. Franklin, et. al. (1987) pg 551 states - With the large array of
organisms present in the decaying log, it may be more “alive” than a living
bole. In addition to being the habitat of decomposer organisms, symplastless
trees provide critical habitat for sheltering and feeding a variety of animal
species.
40. Conclusion: What purpose and need is there that biomass be
classified as dead? Although the symplast may have died completely,
the structure still continues, most of the time as a biomass. To claim
to be removing just “dead” “non-functional” mass during logging operations,
is based on false premise, i.e., that the biomass is dead. Symplastless
and symplast containing trees are linked together in the living machinery
of a forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
41. Logging is altering the carbon to nitrogen ratio over time.
Something to keep in mind - Reports from some countries indicate an abundance
of soluble nitrogen compounds in runoff water and even in ground water. This
is a strong indication that the carbon-nitrogen ratio has been disrupted
in the soil. It is well established from studies of the physiology
of fungal parasitism that the degree of parasitism is often determined by
the carbon-nitrogen ratio. It is probably similar for other organisms
(Shigo, 1996).
42. Logging is removing a storehouse for moisture, which would have
provided moisture for plants and animals during dry times such as summer
drought, as it may be called (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991).
43. Logging is removing present and future decayed logs, which act
like a sponge to absorb water and retain much of the water throughout the
following growing season. This water would be a survival feature during
drought for members of the system (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991).
44. Logging is removing materials, that when soil contact was made,
would have played key roles with the cation exchange capacity, water - holding
capacity, bulk density, essential element and nutrient budgets and erosion
potential (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
45. Logging is removing woody material that has been identified as
playing several important roles in the functioning of the region's forests.
In southwest Oregon, brown-cubical-rotted CWD acts as a perched water reservoir,
the spongy decayed wood being able to hold over twice its own weight in water.
This material thus would have otherwise been a major source of moisture for
fungi and roots well into the summer drought that characterizes the region
(Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994). The same has been seen in the
Allegheny Mountains in the Cook State Park Forest – Protected area, i.e.,
protected from logging. Animals also utilize stored water.
46. Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a fallen
tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition would
have continued. E.g., the flow of plant and animal populations, air, water,
and essential elements. (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12). Logging kills
this system processes by means of disruption and depletion causing dysfunction.
47. Logging is the removal and reduction of the forming of Large Stumps
such as in old-growth trees, which are a finite resource, and their loss
from the forest affects both soil shear strength and watershed hydrology
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
48. Logging is the removal of CWD, and the associated epiphytic bryophytes,
which act as both essential element and moisture buffers for the ecosystems
(FEMAT 1993). This buffering would allow the slow release of water and essential
elements to surrounding plants. In mature and old growth coastal forests,
a large proportion of western hemlock and Sitka spruce seedlings germinate
and grow on CWD substrates (Harmon and Franklin 1989; G. Davis, pers. comm.,
1994).
49. Logging is the removal of CWD, which would affect temperature as
well as moisture, which would have had the capacity to benefit certain beneficial
fungi (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
50. Logging is removing large, fallen trees or trees that will fall,
in various stages of decay. Logging is removing parent material, which
would contribute much-needed diversity to terrestrial and aquatic habitats
in forests. When most biological activity in soil is limited by low moisture
availability in summer, the material removed, fallen tree-soil interface,
would have offered a relatively cool, moist habitat for animals and a substrate
for microbial and root activity. Intensified utilization and management can
deprive future forests of large, fallen trees. The impact of this loss on
habitat diversity and on long-term forest productivity must be determined
because management needs sound information on which to base resource management
decisions (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
51. Logging removes wood and its moisture-holding capacity thus eliminating
its internal processes and therefore the succession of plants and animals.
This affects the biotic community (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
52. Logging is removing snags, which may have accumulated moisture
– carried essential elements and had a higher essential element capital when
it fell than does a tree with symplast (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
53. Logging stops colonization of decomposing wood by animals which
would help microbes to enter interior surfaces of the wood and create additional
openings for entry of water and essential elements; and penetration of the
wood by roots of trees, such as western hemlock, which in turn facilitates
entry by mycorrhizal fungi (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
54. Logging is removing many readily available essential elements that
support opportunistic colonizers as well as the remaining essential elements,
which would be locked in the more decay resistant compounds of the wood.
Ultimately, organisms, with more sophisticated enzyme systems would, have
succeeded the rapidly growing opportunists. (Maser and Trappe, 1984)
55. Logging is removing fallen tress or future fallen trees that when
oriented along the contour of a slope, the upslope side would be filled with
humus and inorganic material which would have allowed invertebrates and small
vertebrates to tunnel alongside. The down slope side would have provided
protective cover for larger vertebrates. When under a closed canopy, such
trees would have also been saturated with water and act as a reservoir during
the dry part of the year (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
56. Logging is removing so called rotten wood or so called rotten wood
to be. So-called rotten wood is critical as substrate for ectomycorrhizal
formation. E.g., in one forest which contained a coniferous stand of
trees (Eastern Hemlock and White Pine are coniferous), over 95 percent of
all active mycorrhizae were in organic matter of which 21 percent were in
decayed wood. In another study in the northern Rocky Mountains, decayed
wood in soil was important. In moist, mesic, and arid habitat types
(Harvey et al. 1979), it was the most frequent substrate for active ectomycorrhizae
on the dry site, probably because of high moisture levels in the wood.
Mycorrhizal fungi can colonize logs, presumably using them as sources of
water, essential elements and nutrients. (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit,
et al. others, 1981).
57. Where we are. Endangered species. Logging is removing present
and future available moist microhabitats, primarily because of a lack of
large logs in intermediate and advanced stages of decay. Aubry et al.
(1988) found that some species of salamander were most abundant around CWD.
Dupuis (1993) concluded that salamander populations in logged areas were
limited by available moist microhabitats, primarily because of a lack of
large logs in intermediate and advanced stages of decay (Voller and Harrison,
1998).
Note: There are salamander species on T & E list.
58. Logging in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, is removing
present and future symplastless wood, which would have functioned as a reservoir
of moisture, ameliorating drought conditions and providing a 'perched water
table' (Triska and Cromack 1979) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
59. Conclusion: The capacity and ability, of CWD, to provide
water / moisture for fauna and flora during dryer times too often goes unobserved,
such as the case in this Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project? Coarse
woody debris / ecoart nurse logs play a key role in providing the requirements
of water/moisture for survival of species of animals as well as plants, be
they listed as threatened and endangered or not. This function it plays
a key role during hot, drier times. To fully comprehend the importance
one must consider time. This function must be thoroughly considered
before making a decision to remove this function from the system or not.
60. What makes a healthy tree or plant?
Logging alters the availability in the proper proportions of the right "STEW"
- Space, Temperature, Elements and Water over time. It is hard for the energy
of the sun to optimally make a tree into the most efficient system on earth
when the right amount of essential elements and water has been removed.
61. What are the requirements for healthy animals of the system?
A water source during dryer times?
62. With a tree system everything is recycled. Logging
removes a major part of a recycling program where experts have a job to do.
63. Logging is removing needed substrate for a decomposition process
where fallen trees release essential elements for microbial and plant growth
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Thus,
logging is removing essential elements for microbial and plant growth.
64. Logging is removing woody duff, which regardless of type or size,
takes considerably longer to decompose than needle and leaf duff do.
Needles, leaves, and small twigs decompose faster than larger woody material
and essential elements are thereby recycled faster in the forest floor. About
140 years are needed for essential elements to cycle in large, fallen trees
and more than 400 years for such trees to become incorporated into the forest
floor; they therefore would interact with the plants and animals of the forest
floor and soil over a long period of forest and stand successional history
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
65. Logging is removing the capacity of the system to accumulate nitrogen
in decaying, fallen trees as well as other significant essential elements
such as calcium and magnesium. Although nitrogen fixation in wood is
modest compared with that occurring in other substrates in forests, the persistence
of decaying wood allows small increments of nitrogen to accrue over many
decades (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 16).
66. Logging is removing wood that would further decompose which would
undergo changes in other chemical constituents and pH as well as physical
structure. Very old, decayed wood can even become somewhat humified
and leave long lasting substrate resistant to further decay (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 16-par 4).
67. Logging is removing trees, which would have been decaying trees.
These trees would have comprised considerable accumulations of mass, nutrients
and elements. (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
68. Note: Some of the largest accumulations occur in the unmanaged
forest of the Pacific Northwest. Coarse woody debris can range from 130 to
276 tons per acre in stands from 100 to more than 1,000 years old. Although
here we are concerned with Douglas fir, neither decaying wood nor research
data are unique to forests of the Pacific Northwest. McFee and Stone
(1966) Observed that decaying wood persisted for more than 100 years in New
York and others pointed out that substantial accumulations of CWD in old-growth
forest in Poland. These observations evidence the long-term continuity
of decaying trees as structural components in forest (Maser and Trappe, 1984,
pg 16).
69. Logging is removing present and future decaying logs on or which
would become a part of the forest floor, which would have been a reservoir
for nutrients as well as essential elements. (Page-Dumroese, Harvey,
Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
70. Logging is removing what would naturally reduce erosion and affect
soil development, store nutrients and water, provide a source of energy and
essential element flow, serve as seedbeds, and provide habitat for decomposers
and heterotrophs (Harmon and Hua, 1991).
71. Logging reduces the pool of stable nutrients. An important feature
of woody debris is that nutrients are released at slower rates than from
fine duff. This slow release allows essential elements to be retained within
the ecosystem until tree production recovers. Timber harvest and salvage
after disturbance reduces this pool of stable essential elements (Harmon
and Hua, 1991).
72. Logging is stopping the decomposition of logs and other forms
of coarse woody debris which reduce erosion, affect soil development, store
essential elements and water, are a potentially large source of energy (nutrients)
and essential elements, serve as a seed bed for plants, and form an important
habitat for fungi and arthropods. Note: Despite growing recognition
that symplastless trees play major roles in ecosystem function, many aspects
of the specific processes involved are poorly understood. Consider, for example,
the importance of CWD in forest essential element cycles. Aside from
nitrogen fixation, few studies have directly examined the processes responsible
for the net changes in essential element content of decaying wood.
The actual proportion of tree nutrition that is derived from CWD is not known
(Kropp, 1982).
73. Thus, logging is increasing soil erosion at the time and over time.
74. Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a fallen
tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition would
have continued. E.g., the flow of plant and animal populations, air,
water, and essential elements. (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
Logging kills this system processes by means of disruption and depletion
causing dysfunction.
75. Logging removes structural components of great importance for forest
dynamics and forest biodiversity. The decomposition of trees removed
would have provided an important link in cycling on nutrients and essential
elements in the ecosystem. In addition, many species of plants, fungi
and animals are dependent on symplastless trees for nutrients, essential
elements, habitat or substrate and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
76. Logging is removing logs, which would have helped reduce erosion
by forming "a barrier to creeping and raveling soils (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
77. Logging increases the loss nutrients and essential elements from
the site. Such spots would have been excellent for the establishment and
growth of vegetation, including tree seedlings. Vegetation would have
been established on and help stabilize this "new soil", and as invertebrates
and small vertebrates would have begun to burrow into the new soil, they
would not only have nutritionally enriched it with their feces and urine
but also constantly mix it by their burrowing activities (Maser and Trappe,
1984 pg 4).
78. Logging removes the habitat, i.e., the would be creations, of inner
space within a log, as it would decompose, which many organisms such as plant
roots, mites, collembolans, amphibians, and small mammals, must await to
enter. The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water, and nutrients
as well as essential elements between fallen tree and its surrounding would
have increased if aging process continued (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
79. Logging removes the sponge like mass, which would gather and store
moisture and essential elements. Duff fall and throughfall are major
pathways for the flow of essential elements and energy within forests, they
contribute essential elements, nutrients and water to so called rotten wood.
The larger a fallen tree, the more duff it accumulates on its surface and
the more essential element rich moisture it intercepts from the canopy. The
moisture gathers essential elements as it passes through the accumulated
duff and soaks into the fallen tree (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 19-par 2).
80. Logging is the removal of CWD, which the associated epiphytic bryophytes
would have acted as both essential element and moisture buffers for the ecosystems
(FEMAT 1993). This buffering would have allowed the slow release of water
and essential elements to surrounding plants. In mature and old growth coastal
forests, a large proportion of western hemlock and Sitka spruce seedlings
germinate and grow on CWD substrates (Harmon and Franklin 1989; G. Davis,
pers. comm., 1994).
81. Logging is altering the chemistry of the system. The main chemical
differences among substrates are: (1) nitrogen content; (2) mineral or ash
content-phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium; (3) the carbon matrix-cellulose,
lignin, pentosans and (4) the content of other organic compounds-waxes, pigments,
carbohydrates, fats, resins, phenolic compounds (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg11
par 2).
82. Logging is altering the amount of nitrogen, however, besides Nitrogen,
Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Phosphorus and other essential elements
play key roles in soil, plant and tree health as well as the other associated
living organisms (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
83. Logging is removing initial, optimal and final stages of fallen
trees. Plant - nutrient / essential elements - and the succession of plants
on fallen trees is mediated by changes in essential element availability
and physical properties over time. Three broad phases can be defined: initial,
optimal, final. Early invaders prepare the tree for later colonization by
altering its physical and chemical properties during the initial phase.
The altered tree provides the best substrate for a wide array of organisms
during the optimal phase. Ultimately, the depletion of essential elements
and physical deterioration of the wood during the optimal phase diminish
its value for many organisms, so fewer species inhabit the final phase (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 25-par 5).
84. Logging is removing CWD, which has the potential to store a large
amount of carbon in the ecosystem. The role of coarse woody debris
in storing carbon is often overlooked, with only living plants or soil carbon
being considered. Relatively little is known about the formation and rate
of decay of coarse woody debris or the factors controlling these processes,
despite the relevance of this information to the global carbon cycle (Harmon
and Hua, 1991).
85. Logging is removing future savings accounts of essential elements
and organic material in the forest soil. The decomposing wood of a
fallen tree serves as the latter (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 16).
86. Logging removes the interactions of fallen trees which interact
with essential element cycling processes in a forest through such mechanisms
as duff fall (freshly fallen or slightly decomposed plant material from the
canopy), throughfall (rain or dew that picks up elements as it falls through
the canopy), nitrogen fixation, and essential element uptake by plants associated
with the fallen trees (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
87. Logging removes opportunities that ground contact by fallen trees
creates for various interactions with the biotic components of soil and duff.
Fungi, for instance, would translocate essential elements within the soil-
system, as both decomposers and root symbionts. Fungi would also immobilize
translocated essential elements and thereby enrich the decomposing wood substrates
they inhabit. In addition, the colonization of decomposing fallen trees by
nitrogen-fixing bacteria permits additional nitrogen accretion within the
decaying wood (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 19-par 3).
88. Logging is removing the external succession processes and benefits
of CWD, which is related to the changes that take place in the plant community
surrounding a fallen tree (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
89. Logging is removing connectors. A fallen tree is a connector
between the successional stages of a community; it would have provided continuity
of habitat from the previous forest through subsequent successional stages
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
90. Logging is removing a large, would be, fallen or already fallen
tree, which would have provided a physical link – an essential element savings
account – through time and across successional stages. Because of its
persistence, the log or logs would have provided a long- term, stable structure
on which some animal (both invertebrate and vertebrate) populations appear
to depend on for survival (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
91. Logging is removal of humus forming materials, which would have
been important in regulating the incorporation of nitrogen into humic materials.
Because of its high cation exchange capacity and slow decomposition, so called
rotten wood, or chemically altered wood, if you please, can retain available
mineral nitrogen from throughfall and decomposition as well as organic nitrogen
compounds mineralized within the wood chemical matrix (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
92. Logging is removing materials, which roots and mycorrhizae, of
plant species that colonize decaying wood, use for its available nitrogen
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
93. Logging is altering humic acids, which slow decomposition reactions
in soils. (Shigo, 1999)
94. Logging is removing materials downed, which would have had a long-term
input of nitrogen fixation
95. Logging is altering a positive balance of nitrogen in the ecosystem.
Logging is removing the long term input by nitrogen fixation in falling trees
as they are being chemically altered by the succession of microorganisms
as well as organisms, which is a highly ordered arrangement. And by
canopy inhibiting lichens, which maintain such input (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
96. Logging is the removal of materials that would have had long-term
potential for contributing nitrogen for tree growth as residual lignin and
humus are decomposed (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
97. Logging is removing what would be equal to slow release fertilizer
for once fertile forest (Many salts of essential elements over time).
With respect to tree maturity, habitats, both external and internal, are
influenced by tree size – maturity (Internal Regulating System – Dynamic
to Static Mass). An uninterrupted supply of new, immature wood in young
forests decomposes and recycles essential elements and energy rapidly. Habitats
provided by the death of the symplast of young trees are short-lived and
rapidly changing. (E.g., specifically speaking, species of young trees,
which produce protection wood such as heartwood, would have not formed heartwood).
In contrast, the less frequent, more irregular mortality of the symplast
of large trees in old forests is analogous to slow-release fertilization.
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Logging reduces the amount
and quality of humus like materials.
98. Logging is removing materials that in time would be decaying and
would have contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter,
partly because the carbon constituents of the future well-decayed wood would
have 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
99. Logging is removing material that would be incorporated in the
soil and would have aided the establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal
fungi on dry sites. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
100. Logging is removing material that in time would have added to
spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes
that maintain long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
101. I did not intend to address methods or other components of logging
processes in this paper, just what is being removed and its chemistry.
As is logging within the ANF, machine is used for several treatments (sorry).
Machine entry on an area, which contains trees, reduces diversity because
heavy equipment fragments and scatters class IV and V so called rotten wood.
Habitat diversity declines to a fraction of what had been available, probably
fewer kinds of organisms can thrive. Further, because woody substrates
serve as long-term soil organic material and essential element reservoirs,
increasingly intensive timber management, coupled with shorter rotations,
could significantly alter the role of decaying wood in the essential element
cycling processes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 48-par 1).
102. Logging is removing critical material, which would have served
for mycorrhizal fungi, which can colonize logs, presumably using them as
sources of water and essential elements. (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit,
et al. others, 1981).
103. Logging is removing a significant factor in essential element
cycling processes (Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993). Although the relative
concentration of essential elements in wood and bark is low, much of the
essential elements capital and carbon are stored here because of the large
biomass involved (Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
104. Logging removes symplastless wood, which would have facilitated
a slow release of essential elements, ameliorated leaching, and provided
a growing substrate for bryophytes (Harmon et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson
et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
105. Logging removes material that would buffer water and essential
element release from duff and aboveground processes, especially processes
such as nitrogen fixation in aboveground plants such as hepatics (Harmon
et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
106. Bacteria are very small. They do big things (Shigo, 1999, #216
pg34)
107. Logging removes habitat for free-living bacteria, which in woody
residues and soil wood fix 30-60% of the nitrogen in the forest soil. In
addition, 20% of soil nitrogen is stored in these components (Harvey et al.
1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported that CWD accounted for as much as 45%
of aboveground stores of organic matter. Symplastless wood in terrestrial
ecosystems is a primary location for fungal colonization and often acts as
refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem disturbance (Triska and Cromack
1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
108. Logging is removing one of the suspected, most important stages
in essential element cycling by the colonization of symplastless wood by
fungi and microbes (Caza 1993); however, these processes are still relatively
poorly understood. In fact soil wood contains a disproportionate amount of
the coniferous non-woody roots or ectomycorrhizae in forests (Harvey et al.
1987). As one of the dominant sources of organic matter, logging removes
symplastless wood, which would have had an important determinant in soil
formation and composition (Caza 1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998)
109. Logging is removing symplastless wood which would have provided
physical structure to the ecosystem and filled such roles as sediment storage
(Wilford 1984), protecting the forest floor from mineral soil erosion and
mechanical disturbance during harvesting activities (Voller and Harrison,
1998).
110. Logging removes material that would ameliorate the affects of
cold air drainage on plants, helps stabilize slopes, and minimizes soil erosion
(Maser et al. 1988) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
111. Logging removes symplastless wood, which would provide elevated
germination platforms with reduced duff fall accumulation and relatively
consistent moisture regimes (Harmon et al. 1986; Maser et al. 1988; Caza
1993; D.F. Fraser, pers. comm., 1995) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
112. Conclusion: The capacity and ability, of CWD, to function
as a nutrient and essential element storehouse, too often goes unobserved
such as in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project? Technical reports
clearly point out that the long term continuity of decaying trees are structural
components of forests. CWD are reservoirs for nutrients as well as
essential elements for long periods of time. CWD provides a source
of energy and essential element flow. Timber harvest and salvage after
disturbances reduces pool of stable nutrients and essential elements. Symplastless
trees are structural components of great importance for forest dynamics and
forest biodiversity. Many species of plants, fungi and animals are
dependent on symplastless trees for nutrients, essential elements, habitat
or substrate and nesting. The benefits and their persistence, in the cycling
of essential elements and providing nutrients is a function which contributes
to system health and a obligatory function to operate at a high quality state,
i.e., operating about the means in which is was designed. Therefore
the removal of such materials that would provide a physical link – an essential
element savings account – through time and across successional stages is
not indicative or technically published to be, a treatment, which would protect
or increase forest health. In all honestly, it will reduce protection
thus forest health as well.
113. Logging has been noted to be the primary cause linked to reforestation
problems where studies on logging were done (NOT DEER).
NATIONAL WOOD FIBER NEEDS indicate substantial increases in demand for wood
fiber - based products. This demand has resulted in increased efforts to
remove all available fiber at harvesting sites. Intensive fiber removal or
intense wildfire potentially reduces the parent materials (duff and wood
residues) available for the production of organic reserves in forest soils.
This reserve, primarily in the form of humus, decayed wood, and charcoal,
has been shown critical to the support of both nonsymbiotic nitrogen fixing
and ectomycorrhizal activities in forest soils of western Montana.
Harvest and fire-caused reductions of organic materials on and in northern
forest soils have been linked to reforestation problems. This study was undertaken
to provide a preliminary estimate of the impact of varying amounts and kinds
of soil organic matter on ectomycorrhizal development in mature western Montana
forests (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen, 1981).
114. Logging of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy source
of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their host plants.
Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation
of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes
a goal of forest management, managers need information not only on owls or
small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the
food web (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
115. Logging removes host for fungi such as Ganoderma Tsuga. Fungi
feeders, E.g., In the Northwest - California red-backed voles to black tailed
deer, may obtain some of their protein nitrogen from decaying trees by feeding
on fungal fruiting bodies, such as what some call truffles and mushrooms
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par 3). Logging may increase browsing
on other plants. Also some other plants may be eaten for moisture during
dry time where moisture reservoirs and few or non.
116. Logging is the removal of mature and maturing trees which conserve
essential elements, whereas the area containing new very young planted trees
following logging are susceptible to erosion and essential element loss (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
117. Logging removes deeper, multi layered canopies, larger accumulations,
of coarse woody debris (any symplastless standing or fallen tree stem at
least 4 inches in diameter at breast height (D.B.H.) on snags and at the
large end on fallen trees), and removes chances of more specialized plants
and animals (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
118. Logging is removing material and removing its ability to interact
with the plants and animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period
of forest successional history. Large fallen trees can take more than
400 years to become incorporated into the forest floor (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988). Without this massive part of an organism,
how do the associates function?
119. Logging removes material that would have greatly influences subsequent
diversity of both external and internal plant and animal habitats (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
120. Logging removes materials that would have provided a changing
spectrum of habitats over many decades, even centuries (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
121. Logging removes material that would have provided diversity within
a given successional stage and forms a physical-chemical link through the
many successional stages of a forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
122. Logging removes the processes CWD would have with its environment
through internal surface areas.
123. Logging is removing the needed material that certain organisms
have the job to enter and gain entrance to the interior, which they consume
and break down wood cells and fibers. (Hey, this is why they were created)
Which the larger organisms – mites, collembolans, spiders, millipedes, centipedes,
amphibians, and small mammals must await the creation of internal spaces
before they can enter (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
124. Logging alters the flow of plant and animal populations, air,
water, and essential elements which would have proceeded if logging was not
done and would have increased as decomposition continued. (Maser, Tarrant,
Trappe and Franklin, 1988). The point, if you please, is that when
you remove the masses of CWD you disrupt, deplete thus causing dysfunction
(leading to Death by means of Killing) the designed essential environmental
health needs of plant, animal populations, air, water and essential elements.
Than man claims that the system is not returning to the conditions prior
logging (given many fancy names), then points the finger to deer claiming
they are responsible for the problem. The problem is that things big
and small are leaving this planet. As latter statements mention, much needed
material for health is removed in logging which would have benefited the
deer and system. Why not call the forest a deer system (heart – lungs
– liver – kidneys – feet = parts of system) Man is the only known organism
that makes decisions regarding trees out of the ignorance of tree biology
and than adds insult to injury.
125. Logging is removing tree parts that would have created and maintained
diversity in forest communities (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
126. Logging is removing material that would have resided on the once
fertile forest floor for long periods, would have added to spatial, chemical,
and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain
long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
127. Logging then is reducing spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity
of forest soils, and the processes that maintain long-term forest productivity
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
128. Logging is removing material that that partly would have maintain
the once fertile forest floors diversity which is partly maintained by windthrown
trees that create a pit-and-mound topography as they are uprooted (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
129. Logging is removing material that would have functioned seedbeds
or nurse logs for some trees species and many species of bryophytes, fungi,
and lichens, and some flowering plants (Table 7.6) (Samuelsson et al. 1994;
D.F. Fraser, pers. comm., 1995; E.C. Lea, pers. comm., 1995) (Voller and
Harrison, 1998).
130. Conclusion: Without a doubt, the removal of CWD is the primary
agent, which alters the system in which problems are blamed on secondary
agents such as deer. Although there is a serious case of denial such
as unobserved with the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project? We know
many animals such as deer and bear use CWD for food supply. “Harvest and
fire-caused reductions of organic materials on and in northern forest soils
have been linked to reforestation problems (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen,
1981).
131. Logging of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy source
of ectomycorrhizal fungi which will not fruit without their host plants Preservation
of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation of its habitat
and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes a goal of forest
management, managers need information not only on owls or small mammals,
but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the food web (Amaranthus,
Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
132. Logging removes essentials for plants. E.g., We know some plants
are likely, obligate CWD user such as Red Hackberry (Vaccinium parvifolium)
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
133. Logging is removing what would result in windthrown trees.
Forest floor diversity is partly maintained by windthrown trees that create
a pit-and-mound topography as they are uprooted (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and
Franklin, 1988).
134. Logging is removing parts and processes of decomposition of fallen
trees which releases essential elements for microbial and plant growth (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
135. Logging removes, regardless of size - materials that would take
a considerably longer time to decompose than would needle and leaf duff.
Needles, leaves, and small twigs decompose faster than larger woody material
and essential elements are thereby recycled faster in the forest floor (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
136. Logging removes material that would, as it falls, be cycling essential
elements for more than 400 years until such trees would become incorporated
into the forest floor (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
And then, still plays key roles in rainbows of humic acids and horizons.
137. Logging therefore removes the interaction with the plants and
animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period of forest and stand
successional history (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
138. Certainly our knowledge of biological processes and their interactions
within forest is incomplete, and we know too little about the cumulative
effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
139. Logging breaks connections. Integrative research at the ecosystem
level shows clearly that the many processes operating within forest inter-connect
in important ways. Further, diversity of microscopic and macroscopic plant
and animal species is a key factor in maintaining these processes (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
140. Logging is removing dying and symplastless wood, which would have
provided one of the two or three greatest resources for animal species in
a natural forest. If fallen timber and slightly decayed trees are removed
the whole system is gravely impoverished of perhaps more than a fifth of
its fauna (Maser and Trappe, 1984). (These plus several other treatments
the USFS on the ANF call “reforestation”)?
141. Logging is removing material that would have offered multitudes
of both external and internal habitats that would have changed and yet persisted
through the decades. One needs an understanding of the synergistic
affects of constant small changes within a persistent large structure to
appreciate the dynamics of a fallen tree and its function in an ecosystem
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 1).
142. Logging is removing present and future symplastless storehouses
for moisture, especially when soil contact is made, which were designed and
would have provided moisture, for plants and animals during dry times such
as summer, so called, drought. (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991). Lack of water, during dry times, can be the limiting factor
for plant, animal and entire species survival (STEW).
143. Logging increases soil erosion. Logging affects soil development
in an unhealthy fashion. Logging removes designed storehouses for essential
elements and water for soil, animals and plants. Logging removes a
potentially large source of energy (nutrients) and essential elements.
Logging removes seedbeds for plants. Logging removes important habitat
for fungi and arthropods. We know, During decomposition, logs and other forms
of coarse woody debris (CWD) reduce erosion, affect soil development, store
essential elements and water, are a potentially large source of energy (nutrients)
and essential elements, serve as a seed bed for plants, and form an important
habitat for fungi and arthropods (Kropp, 1982).
144. Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a
fallen tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition
would have continued. E.g., The flow of plant and animal populations, air,
water, and essential elements. (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
Logging kills this system processes by means of disruption and depletion
causing dysfunction.
145. Logging is removing symplastless trees that were designed to be
structural components of great importance for forest dynamics and forest
biodiversity. Logging is removing the processes of decomposition of
trees, which were designed to provide an important link in cycling of nutrients
and essential elements in ecosystems (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
146. Logging is removing the needs of many species of plants, fungi,
and animals. Many are dependent on symplastless trees for nutrients,
essential elements habitat or substrate and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
147. Logging reduces or stops the formation of “new soil”.
148. Logging increases the loss of nutrients and essential elements
from the site. Such spots would have excellent for the establishment and
growth of vegetation, including tree seedlings. Vegetation would have
been established on and help stabilize this "new soil", and as invertebrates
and small vertebrates would have begun to burrow into the new soil, they
would not only have nutritionally enriched it with their feces and urine
but also constantly mix it by their burrowing activities (Maser and Trappe,
1984 pg 4).
149. Logging is removing initial, optimal and final stages of fallen
trees. Plant - nutrient / essential elements - and the succession of plants
on fallen trees is mediated by changes in essential element availability
and physical properties over time. Three broad phases can be defined: initial,
optimal, final. Early invaders prepare the tree for later colonization by
altering its physical and chemical properties during the initial phase.
The altered tree provides the best substrate for a wide array of organisms
during the optimal phase. Ultimately, the depletion of essential elements
and physical deterioration of the wood during the optimal phase diminish
its value for many organisms, so fewer species inhabit the final phase (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 25-par 5).
150. Logging also has a negative effect on essential elements besides
Nitrogen, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Phosphorus and other essential
elements play key roles in soil, plant and tree health as well as the other
associated living organisms (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991).
151. Logging removes what would be large fallen trees in various stages
of decay which would have contributed to the much needed diversity to terrestrial
and aquatic habitats (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
152. Logging is removing material, that when most, biological activity
in soil, is limited by low moisture availability in summer, would have provided
a fallen tree-soil interface and would have offered a relatively cool, moist
habitat for animals and a substrate for microbial and root activity
(Maser and Trappe, 1984). Similar to taking peoples fans and
air conditioners during summer.
153. Logging can deprive forest of large, fallen trees. The impact
of this loss on habitat diversity and on long-term forest productivity must
be determined because management need sound, information on which to base
resource management decisions (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
154. Logging removes the wood and the moisture-holding capacity of
the wood, which in turn affects succession of plants and animals (Maser and
Trappe, 1984).
155. Logging eliminates the formation of class IV stage of a fallen
tree, which would have presented the most diversified habitat and hence supported
the greatest array of inhabitants. The decayed heartwood (of heartwood
forming trees) would have been relatively stable - so plants that would have
become established upon it would have had time to grow substantial root systems
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 3).
156. Logging removes the ecological stage of trees where essential
element cycling processes takes place in a forest through such mechanisms
as duff fall (freshly fallen or slightly decomposed plant material from the
canopy), throughfall (rain or dew that picks up elements as it falls through
the canopy), nitrogen fixation, and essential element uptake by plants associated
with the fallen trees (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
157. Logging is removing a gradually changing myriad of internal and
external habitats. Plant and animal communities within a fallen tree
are very different from those outside, but both progress through a series
of orderly changes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par7).
158. Logging removes the structure, which would have eventually had
a community surrounding it that would have been complex (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 38-par 1).
159. Logging is removing a connector between the successional stages
of a community. The connector would have provided continuity of habitat
from the previous forest through subsequent successional stages (Maser and
Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
160. Logging is therefore removing physical links - an essential element
savings account – through time and across successional stages (Maser and
Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
161. Logging is removing a persistent long-term, stable structure on
which some animal (both invertebrate and vertebrate) populations appear to
depend on for survival (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
162. Certainly our knowledge of biological processes and their interactions
within forest is incomplete, and we know too little about the cumulative
effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
Logging removes materials that would play key roles in the conservation of
essential elements, whereas areas logged are susceptible to erosion and essential
element loss (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
163. Logging reduces if not eliminates multi-layered canopies, removes
and stops accumulation of larger accumulations of coarse woody debris (any
symplastless standing or fallen tree stem at least 4 inches in diameter at
breast height (d.b.h.) on snags and at the large end on fallen trees) (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
164. Logging reduces and removes connections for survival of specialized
plants and animals, which do survive in unlogged areas (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
165. Logging removes material that would have greatly influences subsequent
diversity of both external and internal plant and animal habitats (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
166. Logging removes materials that would have provided a changing
spectrum of habitats over many decades’ even centuries (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
167. Logging removes material that would have provided diversity within
a given successional stage and forms a physical-chemical link through the
many successional stages of a forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
168. Logging is removing material that would have resided on the forest
floor for long periods and would have added to spatial, chemical, and biotic
diversity of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain long-term forest
productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
169. Logging reduces diversity in forest communities by depletion.
Fallen trees do create and maintain diversity in forest communities (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
170. Logging reduces decaying wood that would have positively enhanced
environment for mycorrhizae. In other words, logging reduces good conditions
for mycorrhizae (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
171. Logging removes future sites that would have served for reproduction
of tree species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
172. Logging is removing a clearly important function of a system containing
trees (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
173. Note: The phenomenon of nurse logs is widespread in the forest
types of the Pacific North- west. Minore (1972) found that seedlings of both
Sitka spruce and western hemlocks were more numerous and taller on so called
rotten logs than on the adjacent forest floor at Cascade Head Experimental
Forest (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
174. Logging removes CWD that would have functioned as seedbeds or
nurse logs for some trees species and many species of bryophytes, fungi,
and lichens, and some flowering plants (Table 7.6) (Samuelsson et al. 1994;
D.F. Fraser, pers. comm., 1995; E.C. Lea, pers. comm., 1995) (Voller and
Harrison, 1998).
175. Note: In the Crowsnest Forest, 40-70% of natural seedlings
were rooted in decayed wood in old growth and 24% were rooted in decayed
wood in cutblocks (S. Berch, pers. comm., 1995). CWD may be important to
the establishment of vascular plants around wet sites such as ponds and bogs
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
176. NOTE: Page 203 has a list of some vascular plants closely associated
with CWD in BC (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
177. Conclusion: The capacity and ability,
of CWD, to enhance the health of threatened and endangered species too often
goes unobserved such as in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project.
178. Logging of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy source
of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their host plants.
Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation
of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes
a goal of forest management, managers need information not only on owls or
small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the
food web (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
179. Certainly our knowledge of biological processes and their interactions
within forest is incomplete, and we know too little about the cumulative
effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem. But integrative,
research at the ecosystem level shows clearly that the many processes operating
within forest inter- connect in important ways. Further, diversity
of microscopic and macroscopic plant and animal species is a key factor in
maintaining these processes (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
179. Logging is removing material along with its ability to interact
with the plants and animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period
of forest successional history. Large fallen trees can take more than
400 years to become incorporated into the forest floor (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988). Without this massive part of an organism,
how do the associates function? Which would mean, that over time the
diverse amounts of gymnosperms and angiosperms removed would have served
support for fungi of different species. An example of a fungi obligatory
for CWD of different types of wood is Ganoderma tsugae which is obligatory
for tsugae snags or nurse logs. Also, this 400 years of contributing
to fungi, is a part of a system, made up of multi- parts and processes that
make healthy forest.
180. Logging is removing a storehouse for moisture, which would have
provided moisture for plants and animals during dry times such as summer
drought, as it may be called (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991).
181. Logging increases soil erosion. Logging affects soil development
in an unhealthy fashion. Logging removes designed storehouses for nutrients,
essential elements and water for soil, animals and plants. Logging
removes a potentially large source of energy (nutrients) and essential elements.
Logging removes seedbeds for plants. Logging removes important habitat
for fungi and arthropods. We know, During decomposition, logs and other forms
of coarse woody debris (CWD) reduce erosion, affect soil development, store
nutrients and water, are a potentially large source of energy (nutrients)
and essential elements, serve as a seed bed for plants, and form an important
habitat for fungi and arthropods (Kropp, 1982).
182. Logging is removing structural components of great importance
for forest dynamics and forest biodiversity. The decomposition of trees
provides an important link in cycling on nutrients in ecosystems. In
addition, many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent on symplastless
trees for salts of essential elements, nutrients, habitat or substrate and
nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
183. Logging reduces and or removes future CWD. Fallen trees that are
oriented along the contours of a slope seem to be used more by vertebrates
than are trees oriented across contours, especially on steep slopes. Large,
stable trees lying along contours help reduce erosion by forming a barrier
to creeping and raveling soils. Soil, nutrients and essential elements
deposited along the up slope side of fallen trees reduce loss of nutrients
and essential elements from the site. Such spots are excellent for the establishment
and growth of vegetation, including tree seedlings. Vegetation becomes
established on and helps stabilize this "new soil", and as invertebrates
and small vertebrates begin to burrow into the new soil, they not only nutritionally
enrich it with their feces and urine but also constantly mix it by their
burrowing activities (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg 4).
184. Logging is removing initial, optimal and final stages of fallen
trees. Plant - nutrient / essential elements - and the succession of plants
on fallen trees is mediated by changes in essential element availability
and physical properties over time. Three broad phases can be defined: initial,
optimal, final. Early invaders prepare the tree for later colonization by
altering its physical and chemical properties during the initial phase.
The altered tree provides the best substrate for a wide array of organisms
during the optimal phase. Ultimately, the depletion of essential elements
and physical deterioration of the wood during the optimal phase diminish
its value for many organisms, so fewer species inhabit the final phase (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 25-par 5).
184. Logging alters species of plants within the system. Studies show
conifer logs, so called well rotted can be quite acid. Ectomycorrhizae
form with just a few fungi compared to adjacent less acid humus and soil
(Trappe, 1977). Conifers include but not limited to, Eastern Hemlock
and Eastern White Pine. Hickory is associated with ectomycorrhizae
species.
186. Logging not only has an effect on the chemistry of the life of
owls or small mammals but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base
of the food web. Preservation of a threatened or endangered species
involves preservation of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails.
Logging often is removal of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts, which removes the
energy source of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their
host plants (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
187. Ectomycorrhizae absorb moisture and essential elements, and translocate
them to their host plants, making ectomycorrhizae essential for the development
of such ecosystems (Harley and Smith 1983; Harvey and others 1979; Harvey
and others 1987; Marks and Kozlowski 1973; Maser 1990). Therefore,
we assume their presence and abundance to be a good indicator of a healthy,
functioning forest soil. Ectomycorrhizae have a strong positive relationship
with soil organic materials (Harvey and others 1981). Soil wood, humus, and
the upper layers of mineral soil that are rich in organic matter are the
primary substrates for the development of ectomycorrhizae (Graham,
Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994). (To mention
some associated trees with ectomycorrhizae - Chestnut, Beech, Birch, Hickory,
Oak, Hemlock and White Pine)
188. Logging removes present as well as future CWD, which causes a
temperature change as well as moisture. The presence of CWD affects
temperature as well as moisture that can have a benefit for certain beneficial
fungi (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
189. Most planned logging overlooks fungal diversity in considerations
of the management of forest. The more obvious plants and animals attract
the attention of the casual observer, but foresters and ecologists need to
recognize that the health of the forest depends on organisms and processes
below ground (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
190. Logging has been noted to reduce the quality of materials left.
So called rotten wood served as mycorrhizal inoculum for containerized western
hemlock seedlings. So-called rotten wood from a clear-cutting was less effective
than that collected from a forest. (Kropp, 1982) NOTE – A clear cut
where everything is removed is NOT a FOREST!
191. Logging has been noted to be the primary cause linked to reforestation
problems where studies on logging were done (NOT DEER).
NATIONAL WOOD FIBER NEEDS indicate substantial increases in demand for wood
fiber - based products. This demand has resulted in increased efforts to
remove all available fiber at harvesting sites. Intensive fiber removal or
intense wildfire potentially reduces the parent materials (duff and wood
residues) available for the production of organic reserves in forest soils.
This reserve, primarily in the form of humus, decayed wood, and charcoal,
has been shown critical to the support of both nonsymbiotic nitrogen fixing
and ectomycorrhizal activities in forest soils of western Montana.
Harvest and fire-caused reductions of organic materials on and in northern
forest soils have been linked to reforestation problems. This study was undertaken
to provide a preliminary estimate of the impact of varying amounts and kinds
of soil organic matter on ectomycorrhizal development in mature western Montana
forests (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen, 1981).
192. Logging reduces soil organic matter thus reducing mycorrhizae
during dry times or at dryer sites.
Both season and site affect the relation between the number of active ectomycorrhizae
and soil organic matter in these ecosystems. In the dry season or on the
drier site, the high soil organic matter content yielded larger numbers of
active ectomycorrhizae than did the low organic matter conditions. Forest
management decisions with potential to disturb soils and reduce woody residues,
particularly in dry Northern Rocky Mountain habitat types, should take into
consideration the importance of soil organic reserves and their affects on
ectomycorrhizae as a factor in forest soil quality. A consistent effort should
be made to retain a moderate quantity of large woody materials. Preliminary
estimates indicate that approximately 25-37 tons/hectare (Harvey, Jurgensen
and Larsen, 1981).
193. Logging is removing materials that abiotic forces as well as biotic
agents were designed to connect with, to establish good forest or system
health.
In other words abiotic forces as well as biotic agents play key roles in
system health.
Fire, fungi and invertebrates are all heavily involved in the creation and
decomposition of CWD. Wind and fungi commonly function together to create
CWD (Edmonds and Marra, 1999).
194. Logging removes habitat for the establishment of niches. As a
symplastless fallen tree would have progressed from decay class I to class
II, the scavengers would have been replaced by competitors with the enzyme
systems needed to decompose the more complex compounds in wood. The fungi
that would have been involve in this activity are often mutually antagonistic,
so that a given part of the tree may have been occupied by only one fungus
that would have excluded others by physical or chemical means (Maser and
Trappe, 1984). (We call this altered area a niche) This
fungus would be a part or the system. How would this fungus survive
without proper habitat for a niche?
195. Logging often consist of removing heartwood - forming trees. Thus
removing the unique features of the system, such as, but not limited too,
various mites, insects, slugs, and snails which feed on higher plants that
become established on so called rotten wood. These plants also provide
cover for animals, as do the lichens, mosses, and liverworts that colonize
fallen trees in decay class IV. Wood-boring beetles, termites, and
carpenter ants produce channels in heartwood (heartwood forming trees) that
would have provided passageways for roots. The fruiting bodies of the
mycorrhizal fungi, produced from energy supplied by the host plant, can also
be a major source of food for insects, arthropods, and small mammals such
as the California red-backed vole (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 29-par 4).
196. Logging is removing present and future materials that would have
harbored a myriad of organisms, from bacteria and actinomycetes to higher
fungi. In fact, of these, only some of the fungi might be noticed by
the causal observer as mushrooms or bracket fungi. These structures,
however, are merely the fruiting bodies produced by mold colonies within
the log. Many fungi fruit within the fallen tree, so they are seen
only when the tree is torn apart. Even when a fallen tree is torn apart,
only a fraction of the fungi present are noticed because the fruiting bodies
of most appear only for a small portion of the year. The smaller organisms,
not visible to the unaided eye, are still important components of the system
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg16-par 5).
197. Logging is removing mold colony habitat.
198. Logging breaks many connections and processes of the ecosystem.
E.g., decayed heartwood (of heartwood forming trees) splits into chunks,
(i.e., if not removed or shall I say if not killed); roots grow down the
resulting cracks as well as along insect channels.
Thus logging is removing shelter which invertebrates – from minute mites
to centipedes, millipedes, slugs, and snails – would have found in these
openings and passage along them, i.e., the cracks over many years (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 4).
199. Logging is removing present as well as future cover for vertebrates
such as salamanders, shrews, shrew moles, and voles, which would have found
cover under debris of sloughed bark and so called rotten wood alongside the
class IV tree; they also would have found the so called rotten wood on the
underside of the tree crumbly enough for digging tunnels or burrows. Fungi
and other microorganisms abound on the wood itself as well as on the new
substrates offered by the feces of animals (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par
4).
200. Logging is removing opportunities for various interactions with
the biotic components of soil and duff. Fungi, for instance, translocated
essential elements within the soil- system, as both decomposers and root
symbionts. Fungi also would have immobilized translocated essential elements
and thereby enriched the decomposing wood substrates they would have inhabited.
In addition, the colonization of decomposing fallen trees by nitrogen-fixing
bacteria would have permitted additional nitrogen accretion within the decaying
wood (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 19-par 3).
201. Logging removes material that animals were designed to Colonize.
Colonization of decomposing wood by animals would have helped microbes to
enter interior surfaces of the wood and created additional openings for entry
of water and essential elements; and penetration of the wood by roots of
trees, such as western hemlock for example, would have facilitated entry
by mycorrhizal fungi (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
202. Logging is removing a source of protein for fungi feeders. Fungi
feeders, E.g., In the Northwest - California red-backed voles to black tailed
deer, may obtain some of their protein nitrogen from decaying trees by feeding
on fungal fruiting bodies, such as what some call truffles and mushrooms
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par 3).
203. Logging is removing materials that in time would be decaying and
would have contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter,
partly because the carbon constituents of the future well-decayed wood would
have 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
204. Logging is removing material that would be incorporated in the
soil and would have aided the establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal
fungi on dry sites. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
205. Logging is removing material that in time would have added to
spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes
that maintain long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
206. Logging removes what may have contributed significantly to reestablishment
of animal populations by providing pathways along which small mammals can
venture into clearcuts and other bare areas. This has relevance to the reestablishment
of tree seedlings on bared areas since survival and growth of new trees depend
on development of appropriate mycorrhizal associations. Surprisingly, fungal
symbionts apparently disappear from cutover areas shortly after their host
trees are removed (Harvey et al. 1978a), and the sites must be reinoculated
with their spores. Many mycosymbionts have underground fruiting bodies and
completely depend on animals for dissemination of spores. Small mammals are
the vectors. They consume the fungus and carry spores to new areas, thereby
inoculating tree seedlings (Maser et al. 1978a, 1978b; Trappe and Maser 1978)
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
207. Logging is removing so called rotten wood or so called rotten
wood to be. So-called, rotten wood is critical as substrate for ectomycorrhizal
formation. E.g., in one forest which contained a coniferous stand of
trees (Eastern Hemlock and White Pine are coniferous), over 95 percent of
all active mycorrhizae were in organic matter of which 21 percent were in
decayed wood. In another study in the northern Rocky Mountains, decayed
wood in soil was important. In moist, mesic, and arid habitat types
(Harvey et al. 1979) it was the most frequent substrate for active ectomycorrhizae
on the dry site, probably because of high moisture levels in the wood.
Mycorrhizal fungi can colonize logs, presumably using them as sources of
water, essential elements and nutrients. (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit,
et al. others, 1981).
208. Logging is presumably removing a source of water, essential elements
and nutrients for mycorrhizae (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,
1981).
209. Logging removes present and future nurse logs, which mycorrhizae
relationships may be an important factor to the establishment of seedlings
on the latter. These removed parts and processes would also be important
to mature trees. Just as quality and special properties of wood products
vary by tree species. The natural ecological characteristics of logs also
vary by species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
210. Logging removes sound CWD, which would have provided secure travel
corridors for small mammals (Maser et al. 1979; Maser and Trappe 1984; Carter
1993), and would have provided subnivean habitat during winter. The value
of this habitat is positively correlated with piece size (Maser and Trappe
1984; Hayes and Cross 1987; Carter 1993). Nordyke and Buskirk (1991) found
that southern red-backed vole abundance was positively correlated with the
decay stage of logs in the central Rocky Mountains. Maser and Trappe, 1984)
and Rhoades (1986) reported associations of small mammals with CWD because
of the food source provided by the fungal fruiting bodies growing in and
on the CWD (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
211. Logging is removing a sound food source for small mammals (fungal
fruiting bodies growing in and on CWD) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
212. Logging removes present and future CWD, which would have functioned
as seedbeds or nurse logs for some trees species and many species of bryophytes,
fungi, and lichens, and some flowering plants (Table 7.6) (Samuelsson et
al. 1994; D.F. Fraser, pers. comm., 1995; E.C. Lea, pers. comm., 1995) (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
213. Logging removes future substrate, which has been known to strongly
influence species richness. Many plant species are either associated
with CWD or perhaps with the fungi that use CWD as their parasitic intermediate,
such as the gnome plant (Hypopitis congestum), candystick (Allotropa virgata),
and other ericaceous species. Ryan and Fraser (1993) reported that cryptogam
species richness in coastal Douglas-fir forests was strongly influenced by
available substrate (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
214. Logging, in areas with trees, reduces, if not eliminates, the
presence of CWD presently or over time. In areas with rock substrate
this logging would result in substantial decrease of species richness (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
215. Logging kills. Dying, not killing, supports communities
of a forest. The review of Samuelsson et al. (1994) of CWD states that
distinct Succession of bryophyte and lichen communities occurs as a trees
symplast dies, fall, and decay (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
216. Logging removes (kills) CWD which studies in B.C., reveal that
macrofungi are dependant on for survival. Known decomposer macrofungi
that are dependent on CWD include 162 species of bracket or shelf fungi/
conks, 364 species of other macrofungi, and some commercially harvested mushrooms,
such as oyster mushrooms (S. Berch, pers. comm., 1995). These communities
play roles in the germination and growth of other epiphytic and quasi-epiphytic
communities. Climatic factors influence epiphytic communities, with lichens
dominating drier ecosystems and bryophytes replacing them as conditions become
wetter. The longevity of individual pieces of CWD is critical to the persistence
of many species with poor dispersal abilities. Dispersal in many species
is from one log to the next, so logs close to each other are required. Samuelsson
et al. (1994) note that large logs play a more important role than small
logs in the ecology of bryophytes and lichens. Large logs last longer, have
greater surface area, and have higher, steeper sides that prevent ground-dwelling
species from invading. They may also be important in providing a relatively
duff-free substrate for the establishment of some species of cryptogams (D.F.
Fraser, pers. comm., 1995) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
217. Logging is removing material that would have facilitated a slow
release of essential elements, ameliorated leaching, and provided a growing
substrate for bryophytes. (Harmon et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson et
al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
218. Logging is removing material that would have buffered water and
essential elements released from duff and above-ground processes, especially
processes such as nitrogen fixation in above-ground plants such as hepatics
(Harmon et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison,
1998).
219. Bacteria are very small. They do big things (Shigo, 1999, #216
pg34)
220. Logging is removing present and future woody residues and soil
wood, which would have contained free-living bacteria, which would have fixed
30-60% the nitrogen in the soil of the forest. In addition, 20% of
soil nitrogen would have been stored in these components removed (Harvey
et al. 1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported that CWD accounted for as much
as 45% of aboveground stores of organic matter (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
221. Logging removes present and future symplastless wood, which in
terrestrial ecosystems would be primary location for fungal colonization
and would have often acted as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem
disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
222. Logging is removing maternal that is needed for colonization by
fungi and microbes. This is thought to be disrupting one of the most
important stages in essential element cycling (Caza 1993); however, these
processes are still relatively poorly understood (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
223. Logging reduces soil wood. Soil wood contains a disproportionate
amount of the coniferous non-woody roots or ectomycorrhizae in forests (Harvey
et al. 1987) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
224. Logging is removing one of the dominant sources of organic matter
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
225. Logging is removing an important determinant in soil formation
and composition (Caza 1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
226. Logging is not what man thought it was several years ago.
We should not blame people of the past. Just recently have we learned
about DNA. Shigo, 1997 suggest there was one driving belief that set
the stage for the growth of arboriculture in the United States. That belief
is now over three centuries old, and it has moved as a wave. When a wave
hits the shoreline, the crash back into the water is much more intense than
the inward rush of water. The belief that grew after our country was colonized
in 1620 was that the trees were endless and they were the enemy. Trees were
in the way of farms, homes, towns and roads. Yes, they did have some value
for buildings and for fires, but their size and abundance made them more
of a problem than a benefit. Over time, the value of trees did increase,
but the belief in endless forests continued.
In recent decades, the great wave with power of more than three centuries
behind it hit a very steep shoreline. The crash of the wave signaled the
end of the belief that the forests were endless.
Man sometimes – learns the hard way. But now we know and need to act
appropriately. Few studies have examined processes, other than nitrogen
fixation, that are responsible for net changes in nutrient and essential
element content of coarse woody debris. It was tempting in the past to assume
that the processes are the same as in fine duff, but recent research being
conducted at Andrews indicates some differences.
1. For example, during the early stages of log decomposition,
fungal sporocarps transfer nutrients to the forest floor. Thus, in fine duff,
fungi immobilize nitrogen, but in coarse woody debris they actively transfer
it to the soil.
2. Another important consideration in understanding nutrient
release from coarse woody debris is that tree boles are composed of several
distinct substrates. While wood may be slowly releasing nutrients, other
parts such as the inner bark (phloem) decompose and release nutrients at
rates similar to those of leaf duff. Hence an overall pattern of release
from symplastless trees may be a rapid loss of 10-20% of the nutrients followed
by an extended slower release of nutrients.
3. Finally, the role of fragmentation in transferring nutrients
to fine duff in the later stages of woody debris decomposition is not revealed
by patterns of net accumulation. The omission of transfers via fragmentation
from previous calculations suggests (Harmon and Hua, 1991). (NOTE:
it may be specifically unclear whether the paper is referring to salts of
essential elements or a true nutrient. Both exist, and are essential
for system health.)
227. Conclusion: The capacity and ability, of CWD, to be a major
habitat, substrate and in some cases niche for fungi and play a key role
in fungi diversity too often goes unobserved in this Painter Run Windthrow
Salvage Project. What purpose and need is there, that the capacity
and ability, of CWD, to play key roles with respect to beneficial bacteria
go unobserved in such cases as the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project?
228. Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves
preservation of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When
such becomes a goal of forest management, managers need information not only
on owls or small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the
base of the food web. Removal of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes
the energy source of ectomycorrhizal fungi that will not fruit without their
host plants (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
229. Certainly our knowledge of biological processes and their interactions
within forest is incomplete, and we know too little about the cumulative
effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem. But integrative
research at the ecosystem level shows clearly that the many processes operating
within forest inter- connect in important ways. Further, diversity
of microscopic and macroscopic plant and animal species is a key factor in
maintaining these processes (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
230. Maser et al. (1979) reported that 178 vertebrates use logs in
the Blue Mountains 14 amphibians and reptiles, 115 birds, and 49 mammals;
they tabulated use by log decay classes for each species. Logs are considered
important in early successional stages as well as in old- growth forests.
The persistence of large logs has special importance in providing wildlife
with habitat continuity over long periods and through major disturbances
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
231. Logging is removing present and future habitat for a variety of
invertebrate species, which would have existed shortly after tree falling
(Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998). Logging is removing
present and future sources of food, nesting and broading sites for a variety
of invertebrate species. Logging is removing present and future protection
from predators and environmental extremes for a variety of invertebrate species.
Logging is removing a present and future source of construction material
and overwintering and hibernating sites for a variety of invertebrate species
(Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
232. Logging removes present and future storehouses for moisture, which
would be providing moisture for plants and animals during dry times such
as summer so called drought (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham,
1991).
233. Logging removes materials that play numerous roles in providing
habitat for organisms in ecosystems (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
234. Logging removes material many invertebrates use or require over
time. Many invertebrates use or require particular species of CWD, and different
communities of invertebrates occupy and use different decay stages of CWD
(Harmon al. 1986; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
235. Logging removes a food source for insectivorous species such as
woodpeckers, small mammals, and bears, which forage on insects dwelling in
CWD (Maser et al. 1979; Maser and Trappe 1984; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Tables
7.3 Id 7.4) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
236. Logging removes and depletes materials that would provide thermal
and security covers for a variety of small mammals. Studies in British
Columbia (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
237. Logging reduces forest floor diversity, which is partly maintained
by windthrown trees that create a pit-and-mound topography as they are uprooted
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
238. Logging removes materials that would otherwise contribute to system
health through ecological stages for more than 400 years at which time would
become fully incorporated into the forest floor where contributions still
would continue in the horizons. They therefore would have interacted
with the plants and animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period
of forest and plant successional history (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
239. Logging is removing what provides two or three greatest resources
for animal species in a forest (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
239. Logging is greatly gravely impoverishing the whole system of perhaps
more than a fifth of its fauna (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
240. Logging is removing present and future structural components of
great importance for forest dynamics and forest biodiversity (Kruys and Jonsson,
1999).
241. Logging is removing present and future important links in cycling
of nutrients in ecosystems (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
242. Logging is removing present and future needs of plants, fungi
and animals. Many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent
on symplastless trees for nutrients, essential elements, habitat or substrate
and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
243. Logging is removing present and future erosion reducing material,
which would have formed in many, cases "a barrier to creeping and raveling
soils.” (Maser and Trappe, 1984)
244. Logging is removing present and future materials that would reduce
loss soil, nutrients and essential elements from the site (Maser and Trappe,
1984).
245. Logging is removing present and future sites that would have been
excellent for the establishment and growth of vegetation, including tree
seedlings. Vegetation would have become established on and helped stabilize
this "new soil", and as invertebrates and small vertebrates began to burrow
into the new soil, they not only would have nutritionally enriched it with
their feces and urine but also constantly mixed it by their burrowing activities
(Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg 4).
246. Logging is removing present and future sites where many organisms
such as plant roots, mites, collembolans, amphibians, and small mammals do
await the creations of the inner space so they can enter. They await
the decomposition of logs (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
247. Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a
fallen tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition
would have continued. E.g., the flow of plant and animal populations,
air, water, and essential elements. (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
Logging kills this system processes by means of disruption and depletion
causing dysfunction.
248. Logging is removing material, which would otherwise serve as a
key role in erosion control and animal activity (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen
and Graham, 1991).
249. Logging is removing present and future material that besides nitrogen
would have provided other essential elements such as Calcium, Magnesium,
Potassium, and Phosphorus when plants need it. Other essential elements
also play key roles in soil, fauna and floral health. (Page-Dumroese,
Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
250. Logging is removing present and future functions of the system
ranging from soil protection to wildlife and microbial habitat. The management
of coarse woody debris is critical for maintaining functioning ecosystems
(Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).
251. Logging is removing present and future potential materials to
hold moisture and in turn, would have had an affect on its own internal processes
and therefore the succession of plants and animals. In addition, the orientation
of a fallen tree to aspect and compass direction and the amount and duration
of sunlight it receives, drastically affect its internal processes and biotic
community (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg 4).
252. Logging is removing a present and future source of food for various
mites, insects, slugs, and snails, which feed on higher plants that become
established on so called rotten wood.
253. Logging is removing present and future cover, which the latter
also would have provided for animals. Lichens, mosses, and liverworts
also colonize fallen trees in decay class IV. Wood-boring beetles,
termites, and carpenter ants produce channels in heartwood (heartwood forming
trees) that provide passageways for roots. The fruiting bodies of the
mycorrhizal fungi, produced from energy supplied by the host plant, can also
be a major source of food for insects, arthropods, and small mammals such
as the California red-backed vole (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 29-par 4).
254. Logging is removing present and future habitat for internal communities.
One example is certain species of salamander. As the bark becomes loose
on a late class II fallen tree, lungless salamanders (Family Plethodontidae)
join the internal community. Three species of salamanders are associated,
as predators, with so-called rotten wood in western Oregon: Oregon slender
salamander, Oregon salamander, and clouded salamander (Maser and Trappe,
1984).
255. Logging is removing present and future decayed heartwood (processes
as well as product), i.e., of heartwood forming tree species, which would
have split into chunks; where as roots would have grown down the resulting
cracks as well as along insect channels. Thus, logging is removing
present and future shelter, which invertebrates – from minute mites to centipedes,
millipedes, slugs, and snails – would have found in these openings and passages
along them. Logging is removing present and future cover which vertebrates
such as salamanders, shrews, shrew moles, and voles, would have found under
debris of sloughed bark and so called rotten wood alongside the class IV
tree; they also would have found the so called rotten wood on the underside
of the tree crumbly enough for digging tunnels or burrows. Logging
is removing present and future materials that fungi and other microorganisms
would have as well as on the new substrates offered by the feces of animals
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 4). (The bottom is processes of a highly
ordered system are being removed by depletion.)
256. Logging is removing present and future wood which colonization
of decomposing wood by animals would have helped microbes to enter interior
surfaces of the wood and created additional openings for entry of water and
essential elements; and penetration of the wood by roots of trees, such as
western hemlock, would have facilitated entry by mycorrhizal fungi (Maser
and Trappe, 1984).
257. Logging is removing present and future materials and sites, which
enhance the life of animals. One salamander, the clouded salamander,
frequents so-called rotten wood, particularly Douglas fir in late classes
II through IV. These salamanders are often found under the loose bark
of large fallen trees in spaces excavated by, wood-eating insects.
In fact, young clouded salamanders show a striking affinity for bark (McKenzie
and Storm 1970). It has been found twenty feet up in standing trees
(Maser and Trappe, 1984). Eastern Hemlock is similar in wood type to
Douglas fir.
258. Logging is removing present and future, large, so called rotten
fallen trees. These trees would have played key roles in animal life
styles over time. In the Northwest it is documented that the final
level of predation within large so called rotten, fallen Douglas Firs in
class III through V is probably that of small mammals, such as shrews and
shrew moles (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
259. Logging is removing present and future grocery for certain animals
such as shrews. E.g., Shrews are small, with short legs, tiny eyes,
and long, pointed noses. Although they cannot see well, their senses of touch,
smell, and hearing are acute. The common shrew in western Oregon Douglas-fir
forests is the Trowbridge shrew. This small, “nervous” mammal is abundant
around fallen trees, particularly classes III and IV, that are well settled
on the forest floor and have been in place long enough to act as shrew’s
grocery. The Trowbridge shrew has the most catholic diet of western
Oregon shrews. It eats at least 47 types of food, the most important
of which are centipedes, spiders, internal organs of invertebrates (probably
mostly beetles), slugs and snails. In addition, it shows a definite
affinity for fallen trees, as does some of their prey. The shrew mole
is ideally equipped to forage in and around fallen trees because its nose
is extremely sensitive to touch, it is much like a blind man’s cane.
In almost constant motion, it quickly identifies any object it contacts.
Further, this mole’s size, adaptions for digging, and herculean strength
make it an efficient, burrowing predator within and beneath so called rotten
wood (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 35-par 3-6).
260. Logging is removing present and future habitat as well as niche
for fungi and its fruiting bodies. This would have impact on fungi
feeders, E.g., California red-backed voles to black tailed deer, may obtain
some of their protein nitrogen from decaying trees by feeding on fungal fruiting
bodies, such as what some call truffles and mushrooms (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 36-par 3).
261. Logging is removing a present and future gradually changing myriad
of internal and external habitats. E.g., as a fallen tree decomposes,
it creates a gradually changing myriad of internal and external habitats.
Plant and animal communities within a fallen tree are very different from
those outside, but both progress through a series of orderly changes. As
a fallen tree decomposes, its internal structure becomes simpler, whereas
the structure of the plant community surrounding the fallen tree becomes
more complex (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par7).
262. Logging is removing the present and future manner which a fallen
tree comes to rest on the forest floor which would have greatly influenced
subsequent diversity of both external and internal plant and animal habitats
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
263. Logging is removing a present and future spectrum of habitats
over many decades’ even centuries (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
264. Logging is removing present and future material that would have
provided diversity within a given successional stage and formed a physical-chemical
link through the many successional stages of a forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
265. Logging is removing present and future flow of plant and animal
populations, air, water, and essential elements between a fallen tree and
its surroundings, which would have increased as decomposition continued.
A fallen tree interacts with its environment through internal surface areas.
A newly fallen tree is not yet a habitat for plants or most animals. But
once organisms gain entrance to the interior they consume and break down
wood cells and fibers. Larger organisms – mites, collembolans, spiders, millipedes,
centipedes, amphibians, and small mammals must await the creation of internal
spaces before they can enter (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
266. Logging is removing present and future material that would have
contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter, partly because
the carbon constituents of well-decayed wood are 80-90 percent residual lignin
and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Logging is removing
present and future materials on dry sites in the soil, which the establishment
of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal fungi are positively correlated
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Logging is removing present
and future materials that would have also created and maintained diversity
in forest communities. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
Soil properties of pits and mounds differ from those of surrounding soil;
such chemical and topographic diversity in turn affects forest regeneration
processes. All this, especially large fallen trees that reside on the
forest floor for long periods, add to spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity
of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain long-term forest productivity
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
267. Logging is removing present and future large trees that when fallen,
could be oriented along the contour of a slope. The upslope side would be
filled with humus and inorganic material, which would have allowed invertebrates
and small vertebrates to tunnel alongside. The down slope side would have
provided protective cover for larger vertebrates. When under a closed
canopy, such trees, at some point, would have also been saturated with water
and act as a reservoir during the dry part of the year (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
268. Logging is removing present and future essential habitat for a
variety of invertebrates and vertebrates (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al.
others, 1981).
Logging is removing present and future sites used for lookouts, feeding and
reproduction, protection and cover, sources and storage of food, and bedding
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
269. Logging is removing present and future logs, which the moisture
content would have made them particularly important as habitat for amphibians
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
270. Logging is removing present and future logs, which may have contributed
significantly to the reestablishment of animal populations by providing pathways
along which small mammals could have ventured into clearcuts and other bare
areas. This also has relevance to the reestablishment of tree seedlings on
bared areas since survival and growth of new trees depend on development
of appropriate mycorrhizal associations. Surprisingly, fungal symbionts apparently
disappear from cutover areas shortly after their host trees are removed (Harvey
et al. 1978a), and the sites must be reinoculated with their spores. Many
mycosymbionts have underground fruiting bodies and completely depend on animals
for dissemination of spores. Small mammals are the vectors. They consume
the fungus and carry spores to new areas, thereby inoculating tree seedlings
(Maser et al. 1978a, 1978b; Trappe and Maser 1978) (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit,
et al. others, 1981).
271. Logging is removing present and future sound CWD, which would
have provided secure travel corridors for small mammals (Maser et al. 1979;
Maser and Trappe 1984; Carter 1993), and provided subnivean habitat during
winter. The value of this habitat is positively correlated with piece
size (Maser and Trappe 1984; Hayes and Cross 1987; Carter 1993). Nordyke
and Buskirk (1991) found that southern red-backed vole abundance was positively
correlated with the decay stage of logs in the central Rocky Mountains. Maser
and Trappe, 1984) and Rhoades (1986) reported associations of small mammals
with CWD because of the food source provided by the fungal fruiting bodies
growing in and on the CWD (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
272. Logging is removing present and future debris used by martens
and weasels. Gyug (1993) reported that fur-bearers (martens and weasels)
used clearcuts with logging debris more than those with no CWD; however,
the level of use was much less than that of the adjacent forest (Voller and
Harrison, 1998).
273. Logging is removing present and future material valuable to mustelids
(particularly martens, weasels, and fishers), which is well documented (Baker
1992; Corn and Raphael 1992; Lofroth 1993; Buskirk and Powell 1994; Buskirk
and Ruggiero 1994; and others) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
274. Logging is removing present and future materials which martens
would have selected for habitats partly on the basis of thermal microhabitats
(Taylor 1993), such as those provided by CWD (Lofroth 1993; Buskirk and Powell
1994; Buskirk and Ruggiero 1994). Corn and Raphael (1992) reported
that martens selected subnivean access points that had greater volumes of
CWD, more layering of logs, more sound and moderately decayed logs, and fewer
highly decayed logs than random sites (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
275. NOTE page 200 – 201 has charts on animals known now to be associated
with CWD (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
276. Logging is removing present and future material that would have
benefited salamander populations. Aubry et al. (1988) found that some
species of salamander were most abundant around CWD. Dupuis (1993) concluded
that salamander populations in logged areas were limited by available moist
microhabitats, primarily because of a lack of large logs in intermediate
and advanced stages of decay (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
277. Logging is removing present and future sites that Salamanders
would have used or need for reproduction sites, as foraging sites, and for
cover, and also laying their eggs in them (Table 7.5 pg202) (Samuelsson et
al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
278. Logging is removing what would be, at some point, a source of
water during dry time, and food during wet times. E.g., food, during
winter months, inside certain stages, for insectivorous species for starters.
279. Conclusion: The capacity and ability, of CWD, to function
as habitat, foraging sites, protection, reproduction sites, moist microhabitats,
thermal microhabitats, secure travel corridors, lookouts, feeding site, sources
and storage of food, bedding over many decades even centuries and a physical-chemical
link through the many successional stages of a forest too often goes unobserved
such as in this Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project?
280. What makes a healthy tree or plant? The availability in the
proper proportions of the right "STEW" - Space, Temperature, Elements and
Water. And the energy of the sun will be used optimally making a tree into
the most efficient system on earth. Everything is
recycled.
281. Logging is removing present and future protection from predators
and environmental extremes for a variety of invertebrate species.
Logging is removing a present and future source of construction maternal
and overwintering and hibernating sites for a variety of invertebrate species
(Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
282. Logging is removing present and future sound CWD, which would
have provided secure travel corridors for small mammals (Maser et al. 1979;
Maser and Trappe 1984; Carter 1993), and provided subnivean habitat during
winter. (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
283. Logging is removing present and future CWD. The CWD, would
have had positive affects on temperature as well as moisture, which could
have had benefit for certain beneficial fungi (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar,
1994).
284. Logging is removing present and future parts and processes, where
as, decay would have proceeded and the fallen tree would have begun to more
closely be hugged by the soil. It would have buffered it (the soil) against
fluctuations in air temperature (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 13).
285. Logging is removing present and future parts and their processes
which would have performed various ecological functions between the time
it would have fell and the time it would have been finally incorporated into
the soil. If it would have lied up-and-down slope or fallen across other
downed trees, most of its volume would have been initially suspended above
the ground. Such elevated relief would have added complexity to the forest
floor by creating cover and shade (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
286. Logging removes and depletes materials that would provide thermal
and security cover for a variety of small mammals. Studies in British Columbia
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
287. Logging is removing present and future materials which martens
would have selected for habitats partly on the basis of thermal microhabitats
(Taylor 1993), such as those provided by CWD (Lofroth 1993; Buskirk and Powell
1994; Buskirk and Ruggiero 1994). Corn and Raphael (1992) reported that martens
selected subnivean access points that had greater volumes of CWD, more layering
of logs, more sound and moderately decayed logs, and fewer highly decayed
logs than random sites (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
288. Logging removes material that would ameliorate the affects of
cold air drainage on plants, helps stabilize slopes, and minimizes soil erosion
(Maser et al. 1988) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
289. Conclusion: The capacity and ability, of CWD, to function
as thermal microhabitats, cover, shade provider, subnivean habitat during
winter, protection provider as well as ameliorating the affects of cold air
drainage on plants and potential to buffer soil against fluctuations in air
temperature too often goes unobserved such as in the Painter Run Windthrow
Salvage Project.
290. The fasted way to destroy an organism is to destroy its niche
– the place where it lives and reproduces (A New Tree Biology Dictionary,
Shigo).
291. Logging is removing a present and future finite resource that
create a myriad of changing habitats through time as they decompose and recycle
into the forest soil and new, living trees benefit. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
292. Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation
of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes
a goal of forest management, managers need information not only on owls or
small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the
food web. Removal of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy
source of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their host
plants (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
293. Logging is removing, probably the single most, present and future,
important habitat and potential niche for the survival of organisms in drastically
altered systems. Of things we need to know, we especially need to know
more about the fallen tree – soil interface (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
Recent and current research in Old-growth forest is revealing much about
the roles and qualities of fallen trees. Understanding this information
may allow use of fallen trees as sensitive barometers of “habitat health”
of a system (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
294. Logging is removing present and future multitudes of both external
and internal habitats that change and yet persist through the decades.
One needs an understanding of the synergistic affects of constant small changes
within a persistent large structure to appreciate the dynamics of a fallen
tree and its function in an ecosystem (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par
1).
295. Logging is removing present and future forest floor diversity,
which is partly maintained by windthrown trees that create a pit-and-mound
topography as they are uprooted (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
This provides potential habitat as well as conditions for niches.
296. Logging is removing present and future functions of the system
ranging from soil protection to wildlife and microbial habitat. The management
of coarse woody debris is critical for maintaining functioning ecosystems
(Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).
297. Logging is removing present and future stuff that would have provided
conditions for habitat as well as certain niches for more than 400 years.
Technically, woody duff, regardless of type or size, takes considerably longer
to decompose than does needle and leaf duff. Needles, leaves, and small
twigs decompose faster than larger woody material and essential elements
are thereby recycled faster in the forest floor. About 140 years are needed
for essential elements to cycle in large, fallen trees and more than 400
years for such trees to become incorporated into the forest floor; they therefore
interact with the plants and animals of the forest floor and soil over a
long period of forest and stand successional history (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
298. Logging is removing present and future stuff which when removed
cannot perform its unique functions such as but not limited too the following
- soil erosion reduction, synergistic affects on soil development, store
nutrients and essential elements (for forest inhabitants), store water (for
forest inhabitants), provide a source of energy and nutrient flow, serve
as seedbeds and provide habitat for decomposers and heterotrophs (Harmon
and Hua, 1991).
299. Logging increases soil erosion. Logging affects soil development
in an unhealthy fashion. Logging removes designed storehouses for nutrients
and water for soil, animals and plants. Logging removes a potentially
large source of energy (nutrients) and essential elements. Logging
removes seedbeds for plants. Logging removes important habitat for
fungi and arthropods. We know, During decomposition, logs and other forms
of coarse woody debris (CWD) reduce erosion, affect soil development, store
nutrients and water, are a potentially large source of energy (nutrients)
and essential elements, serve as a seed bed for plants, and form an important
habitat for fungi and arthropods (Kropp, 1982).
300. Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a
fallen tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition
would have continued. E.g., The flow of plant and animal populations,
air, water, and essential elements (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
Logging kills this system processes by means of disruption and depletion
causing dysfunction.
301. Logging is removing structural components of great importance
for forest dynamics and forest biodiversity. The decomposition of trees
provides an important link in cycling on nutrients in ecosystems. In
addition, many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent on symplastless
trees for salts of essential elements, nutrients, habitat and or substrate
and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).
302. Logging reduces and or removes future CWD. Fallen trees that are
oriented along the contours of a slope seem to be used more by vertebrates
than are trees oriented across contours, especially on steep slopes. Large,
stable trees lying along contours help reduce erosion by forming a barrier
to creeping and raveling soils. Soil and nutrients deposited along
the up slope side of fallen trees reduce loss of nutrients from the site.
Such spots are excellent for the establishment and growth of vegetation,
including tree seedlings. Vegetation becomes established on and helps
stabilize this "new soil", and as invertebrates and small vertebrates begin
to burrow into the new soil, they not only nutritionally enrich it with their
feces and urine but also constantly mix it by their burrowing activities
(Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg 4).
303. Logging removes the habitat, i.e., the would be creations, of
inner space within a log, as it would decompose, which many organisms such
as plant roots, mites, collembolans, amphibians, and small mammals, must
await to enter. The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water,
and nutrients as well as essential elements between fallen tree and its surrounding
would have increased as long as aging process continued (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 12).
304. Logging is removing present and future logs, which would otherwise
serve a key role as erosion control and animal activity (Page-Dumroese, Harvey,
Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
305. Logging is removing large, fallen trees or trees that will fall
in various stages of decay. Logging is removing parent material, which
would contribute much-needed diversity to terrestrial and aquatic habitats
in western forests. When most biological activity in soil is limited by low
moisture availability in summer, the material removed, fallen tree-soil interface
would have offered a relatively cool, moist habitat for animals and a substrate
for microbial and root activity. Intensified utilization and management can
deprive future forests of large, fallen trees. The impact of this loss on
habitat diversity and on long-term forest productivity must be determined
because management needs sound information on which to base resource management
decisions (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
306. Logging conifers is removing present and future tissues that perform
specific functions. When a tree dies, the various tissues provide distinguishable
substrates that provide different niches (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg10).
307. Logging removes habitat for the establishment of niches. As a
symplastless fallen tree would have progressed from decay class I to class
II, the scavengers would have been replaced by competitors with the enzyme
systems needed to decompose the more complex compounds in wood. The fungi
that would have been involved in this activity are often mutually antagonistic,
so that a given part of the tree may have been occupied by only one fungus
that would have excluded others by physical or chemical means (Maser and
Trappe, 1984). (We call this altered area a niche) This
fungus would be a part or the system. How would this fungus survive
without proper habitat for a niche?
308. Logging is removing present and future persistent capacity for
new habitat. As the fallen tree progresses through decay Classes II
and III of decomposition, slippage of the bark, and eventually decayed sapwood,
removes a favorable environment and the organisms within it from the top
and sides of the tree; that material, however, does not disappear.
Most of it accumulates loosely alongside the log to provide a new habitat
favorable to many of the same organisms as before, plus larger animals, such
as slugs, snails, salamanders, and small mammals (Maser and Trappe, 1984,
pg 29-par 3).
309. Logging is removing present and future ecological stages of trees,
which would have served with great importance. It is in the class
IV stage that the fallen tree presents the most diversified habitat and hence
supports the greatest array of inhabitants. The decayed heartwood (of heartwood
forming trees) is relatively stable - so plants that become established on
it have time to grow substantial root systems (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg
17-par 3).
310. Logging is removing a gradually changing myriad of internal and
external habitats. Plant and animal communities within a fallen tree
are very different from those outside, but both progress through a series
of orderly changes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par7). Questions
on Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project: How many tons per acre was the
target in this project? How about habitat?
311. Logging removes the structure, which would have eventually had
a community surrounding it that would have been complex (Maser and Trappe,
1984, pg 36-par7).
312. Logging is removing connectors. A fallen tree is a connector
between the successional stages of a community; it would have provided continuity
of habitat from the previous forest through subsequent successional stages
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
313. Logging is removing a large, would be, fallen or fallen tree,
which would have provided a physical link – an essential element savings
account – through time and across successional stages. Because of its
persistence, the log or logs would have provided a long- term, stable structure
on which some animal (both invertebrate and vertebrate) populations appear
to depend on for survival (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).
314. Machine entry in an area, which contains trees, reduces diversity
because heavy equipment fragments and scatters class IV and V so called rotten
wood. Habitat diversity declines to a fraction of what had been available,
probably fewer kinds of organisms can thrive. Further, because woody
substrates serve as long-term soil organic material and essential element
reservoirs, increasingly intensive timber management, coupled with shorter
rotations, could significantly alter the role of decaying wood in the essential
element cycling processes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 48-par 1).
315. Logging is removing present and future structures that would have
interacted with its environment through internal surface areas. A newly fallen
tree is not yet a habitat for plants or most animals. But once organisms
gain entrance to the interior they consume and break down wood cells and
fibers. Larger organisms – mites, collembolans, spiders, millipedes, centipedes,
amphibians, and small mammals must await the creation of internal spaces
before they can enter. The flow of plant and animal populations, air,
water, and essential elements between a fallen tree and its surroundings
increases as decomposition continues (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
316. Logging is removing present and future habitats. Habitats, both
external and internal, are influenced by tree size. An uninterrupted supply
of new, immature wood in young forests decomposes and recycles essential
elements and energy rapidly. Habitats provided by the death of the symplast
of young trees are short-lived and rapidly changing. (E.g., specifically
speaking, heartwood-forming trees lack chemical alterations required for
production on heartwood). In contrast, the less frequent, more irregular
mortality of the symplast of large trees in old forests is analogous to slow-release
fertilization. The lasting quality of large fallen trees creates stable habitats
in which large woody debris accumulates. Scattered accumulations of large
woody debris are associated with openings in the forest canopy. Large fallen
trees in such an area often contact each other physically, creating external
habitats of intense biological activity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
317. Logging is removing materials, that in time, would be decaying
and would have contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter,
partly because the carbon constituents of the future well-decayed wood would
have 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
318. Logging is removing material that would be incorporated in the
soil and would have aided the establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal
fungi on dry sites (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
319. Logging is removing material that in time, would have added to
spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes
that maintain long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and
Franklin, 1988).
320. Logging is removing present and future essential habitat for a
variety of invertebrates and vertebrates (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al.
others, 1981).
Logging is removing present and future sites used for lookouts, feeding and
reproduction, protection and cover, sources and storage of food, and bedding
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981). Logging is
removing present and future logs, which the moisture content, would have
made them particularly important as habitat for amphibians (Franklin, Cromack,
Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
321. One technical report [(Maser et al. (1979)] based on the Blue
Mountains revealed logging is removing present and future habitat for at
least 178 vertebrates, 14 amphibians and reptiles, 115 birds, and 49 mammals;
they tabulated use by log decay classes for each species. In fact, logs are
considered important in early successional stages as well as in old- growth
forests. The persistence of large logs has special importance in providing
wildlife with habitat continuity over long periods and through major disturbances
(Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981). My question
is how many of the latter organisms and others depend on CWD for moisture
during dry times and coolness during heat waves. How many organisms,
have become extinct because of the depletion of CWD.
322. Logging is removing present and future habitat for mycorrhizae.
So-called rotten wood is critical as substrate for ectomycorrhizal formation.
In one forest which contained coniferous trees, over 95 percent of all active
mycorrhizae were in organic matter of which 21 percent were in decayed wood.
In another study in the northern Rocky Mountains, decayed wood in soil was
important. In moist, mesic, and arid habitat types (Harvey et al. 1979);
it was the most frequent substrate for active ectomycorrhizae on the dry
site, probably because of high moisture levels in the wood. Mycorrhizal fungi
can colonize logs presumably using them as sources of water, essential elements
and nutrients. (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
323. Logging is removing present and future coarse woody debris, which
were designed to play numerous key roles in providing habitat for organisms
in ecosystems (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
324. Logging is removing present and future species of materials that
many invertebrates require (species specific), and materials of different
decay stages of CWD, which communities of invertebrates would otherwise occupy,
and use (Harmon al. 1986; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
Note a healthy mature tree may have a thousand or more infections (Shigo,
1999). Insects infest, microorganism infect. For starters, many
types of infections are species specific, such as fungi infections, e.g.,
mycorrhizae. Therefore system health would greatly depend on species
diversity. E.g., not clear-cut black cherry stands with CWD removed.
325. Conclusion: Logging does not appear to increase habitat.
System health and habitat interconnect. What purpose and need is there,
that the capacity and ability, of CWD, to function as habitat, be removed
in the name of forest heath such as the claims in the Painter Run Windthrow
Salvage Project?
326. Note: Also see, 6. Logging – Fungi Diversity – Mycorrhizae – Bacteria
/ Endangered Species.
327. Many insects, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms are thought
to be harmful, yet very few of them are (SHIGO, 1999). The insects
and microorganisms have a job to do on earth. Many are "clean up" experts
such as a fungus that parasitizing another mushroom fruiting body of another
fungus (SHIGO, 1999 - Pg 105 ). These organisms break down dead organisms
to release or recycle elements essential for new life. Some organisms attack
others that no longer have a defense system. A few attack living organisms
that are healthy. In spite of abiotic destructive forces and biotic
agents such as insects, bacteria, and fungi, humans still rank as the major
destructive agent for trees in forests and cities. Ignorance of tree biology
is a major cause of this (SHIGO 1999).
328. Something to consider: Certainly our knowledge of biological processes
and their interactions within forest is incomplete, and we know too little
about the cumulative effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem.
But integrative research, at the ecosystem level shows clearly that the many
processes operating within forest inter- connect in important ways. Further,
diversity of microscopic and macroscopic plant and animal species is a key
factor in maintaining these processes (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin,
1988).
329. Logging is removing present and future food sources of insectivorous
species of animals such as woodpeckers, small mammals, and bears which forage
on insects dwelling in CWD (Maser et al. 1979; Maser and Trappe 1984; Samuelsson
et al. 1994) (Tables 7.3 Id 7.4) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
330. Logging is removing present and future persistent sources besides
nitrogen, other essential elements such as Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium,
and Phosphorus and other essential elements play key roles in soil, plant
and tree health as well as the associated other living organisms (Page-Dumroese,
Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991). [See: 4. Coarse woody debris –
Nutrients and Essential Elements]
331. Logging is removing present and future higher plants that would
have become established on the so-called rotten wood. Various mites,
insects, slugs, and snails would have fed on the higher plants. These
plants would have also provided cover for animals, as would have the lichens,
mosses, and liverworts that colonize fallen trees in decay class IV (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 29-par 4).
332. Logging is removing present and future persistent material that
wood-boring beetles, termites, and carpenter ants would have produced channels
(in heart wood or more specifically discolored wood) that would have provided
passageways for roots. The fruiting bodies of the mycorrhizal fungi,
produced from energy supplied by the host plant, can also be a major source
of food for insects, arthropods, and small mammals such as the California
red-backed vole (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 29-par 4).
333. Logging is removing present and future persistent mini ecosystems
within the forest. Because of all of the internal activity, the longer
a fallen tree rests on the forest floor, the greater the development of its
internal surface area. Most internal surface area results from biological
activity the cumulative affects of which not only increase through time but
also act synergistically – insect activity promotes decomposition through
microbial activity that encourages the establishment and rooting of plants
(Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12).
334. Logging breaks many connections and processes of the ecosystem.
E.g., decayed heartwood (of heartwood forming trees) splits into chunks,
(i.e., if not removed or shall I say if not killed); roots grow down the
resulting cracks as well as along insect channels.
Thus logging is removing shelter which invertebrates – from minute mites
to centipedes, millipedes, slugs, and snails – would have found in these
openings and passage along them, i.e., the cracks over many years (Maser
and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 4).
335. Logging is removing present as well as future cover for vertebrates
such as salamanders, shrews, shrew moles, and voles, which would have found
cover under debris of sloughed bark and so called rotten wood alongside the
class IV tree; they also would have found the so called rotten wood on the
underside of the tree crumbly enough for digging tunnels or burrows. Fungi
and other microorganisms abound on the wood itself as well as on the new
substrates offered by the feces of animals (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par
4).
336. Logging is removing present and future insect altered wood, one
example we know of, particularly of Douglas – fir, when in late classes II
through IV would have found itself frequented by one salamander known as
the clouded salamander.
Logging is removing present and future processes, where wood eating insects,
would be excavating spaces in large fallen trees which clouded salamanders
are often found under the loose bark. In fact, young clouded salamanders
show a striking affinity for bark (McKenzie and Storm 1970). It has
been found twenty feet up in standing trees (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
337. Logging is the killing of class 1 trees, which would have, for
an example had provided readily available essential elements that would have
supported communities of opportunistic colonizers. As decay would have
proceeded, water-holding capacity would have increased. Organisms with
more sophisticated enzyme systems would have succeeded the rapidly growing
opportunists, and decay would have continued (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
338. Logging is removing materials that could have, on the once fertile
forest floor, greatly influenced subsequent diversity of both external and
internal plant and animal habitats. The decomposing fallen trees would
have provided a changing spectrum of habitats over many decades’ even centuries.
It would have provided diversity within a given successional stages of a
forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
339. Logging removes materials that would have allowed organisms to
gain entrance to the interior, which would consume and breakdown wood cells
and fibers. Thus, logging removes the would be creation of internal
spaces which larger organisms such as mites, collembolans, spiders, millipedes,
centipedes, amphibians and small mammals must await before they can enter.
Logging removes the processes of flow of plant and animal populations,
air, water and essential elements that would have been created by a fallen
tree and its surroundings which would have increased as decomposition would
have continued (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
340. Logging is removing materials that would have contributed to long-term
accumulation of soil organic matter, partly because the carbon constituents
of well-decayed wood would have been 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus.
The materials being removed would have created and maintained diversity in
forest communities (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
341. Conclusion: I have learned that logging does not appear
to increase the health of insects and other bonogens and or endangered species.
What purpose and need is there, that the capacity and ability, of CWD, to
function as an habitat for insects, thus a food source for insectivorous
species of animals such as woodpeckers, small mammals and bears be removed
by the process of logging?
342. What purpose and need is there, that the capacity and ability,
of CWD, to function as a changing spectrum of habitats over many decades’
even centuries be removed?
343. What purpose and need is there, that the capacity and ability,
of CWD, to function as diversity within a given successional stage and form
a physical-chemical link through the many successional stages of a forest
go unobserved in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project?
344. We especially need to know more about the fallen tree – soil
interface, probably the single most important habitat and potential niche
for the survival of organisms in drastically altered systems (Maser and Trappe,
1984).
345. Some of the largest accumulations of CWD occur in the unmanaged
forest of the Pacific Northwest. CWD can range from 130 to 276 tons per acre
in stands from 100 to more than 1,000 years old. Although here we are concerned
with Douglas fir, neither decaying wood nor research data are unique to forests
of the Pacific Northwest. McFee and Stone (1966) Observed that decaying wood
persisted for more than 100 years in New York and others pointed out that
substantial accumulations of CWD in old-growth forest in Poland. These
observations evidence the long-term continuity of decaying trees as structural
components in forest (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 16).
346. Logging is removing material that would have played a key role
in humus formation and regulator of the incorporation of nitrogen into humic
materials. This is an important feature. Because of its high
cation exchange capacity and slow decomposition, so called rotten wood can
retain available mineral nitrogen from throughfall and decomposition as well
as organic nitrogen compounds mineralized within the wood chemical matrix.
Non-woody roots and mycorrhizae of plant species that colonize decaying wood
use its available nitrogen (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
347. Logging is removing the long-term input by nitrogen fixation in
decaying fallen trees and by canopy inhibiting lichens which would have maintained
a positive balance of nitrogen in the ecosystem (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe,
and Franklin, 1988).
348. Logging removing materials that would be decaying wood which would
have had long term potential for contributing nitrogen for tree growth as
residual lignin and humus are decomposed (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin,
1988).
349. Logging is removing materials that would have performed ecological
functions, in many cases, for more than 400 years. Woody duff, regardless
of type or size, takes considerably longer to decompose than does needle
and leaf duff. Needles, leaves, and small twigs decompose faster than
larger woody material and essential elements are thereby recycled faster
in the forest floor. About 140 years are needed for essential elements to
cycle in large, fallen trees and more than 400 years for such trees to become
incorporated into the forest floor; they therefore interact with the plants
and animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period of forest and
stand successional history (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
350. Logging greatly reduces humus formation. In fact:
Lignin is important in later stages of decomposition because it affects the
proportions of different residues that may be incorporated into humic materials.
Woody duff components are generally higher in initial lignin than are nonwoody
components (table 2.13); high lignin content results in formation of large
quantities of humus in latter stages of decay (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and
Franklin, 1988).
351. Logging alters the soil chemistry by creating a less acid and
less humic soil in many cases. Studies show conifer logs, so called
well-rotted, can be quite acid. Ectomycorrhizae form with just a few
fungi compared to adjacent less acid humus and soil (Trappe, 1977).
352. Logging removes the source of much needed “soil wood” (Page-Dumroese,
Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).
353. Logging is removing future needed active parts of the soil system
as soil wood. In fact: Coarse woody debris can be incorporated
into the surface soil horizon as freezing and thawing cycles move CWD into
the soil. Additionally, CWD can be covered as soil moves downhill. Depending
on the forest type, large amounts can be left in the form of decaying tree
roots. All of these materials, in the advanced stages of decay, can be active
parts of the soil system as soil wood. (Carbon Based Cellulose) Because CWD
is an important component of a functioning ecosystem, a portion of this material
must be maintained. As the demand for forest products and the ability to
utilize more fiber increases, less material is being left after timber harvesting
or after salvage operations. These operations, in combination with past practices
of slash disposal and site preparation, have reduced organic material in
the forest floor, making CWD management critical (Harvey and others 1987).
Consequently, recommendations for maintaining CWD for different ecosystems
and forest types are needed (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese,
1994).
354. Logging reduces the soil of the forest, health.
355. Ectomycorrhizae absorb moisture and essential elements, and translocate
them to their host plants, making ectomycorrhizae essential for the development
of such ecosystems (Harley and Smith 1983; Harvey and others 1979; Harvey
and others 1987; Marks and Kozlowski 1973; Maser 1990). Therefore, we assume
their presence and abundance to be a good indicator of a healthy, functioning
forest soil. Ectomycorrhizae have a strong positive relationship with soil
organic materials (Harvey and others 1981). Soil wood, humus, and the upper
layers of mineral soil that are rich in organic matter are the primary substrates
for the development of ectomycorrhizae. (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain,
Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994). Some examples of trees associated
with ectomycorrhizae are - Chestnut, Beech, Birch, Hickory, Oak, Hemlock
and White Pine.
356. Logging, such as the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project, has
demands to remove all available fiber at harvesting sites.
Intensive fiber removal or intense wildfire potentially reduces the parent
materials (duff and wood residues) available for the production of organic
reserves in forest soils. This reserve, primarily in the form of humus, decayed
wood, and charcoal, has been shown critical to the support of both nonsymbiotic
nitrogen fixing and ectomycorrhizal activities in forest soils of western
Montana. Harvest and fire-caused reductions of organic materials on
and in northern forest soils have been linked to reforestation problems.
This study was undertaken to provide a preliminary estimate of the impact
of varying amounts and kinds of soil organic matter on ectomycorrhizal development
in mature western Montana forests (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen, 1981).
357. Logging often is removing heartwood of heartwood forming trees,
which would have merged into humus becoming incorporated into the soil profile
(Maser and Trappe, 1984).
358. Logging is removing material that would have been hugged by the
soil and would have buffered it against fluctuations in air temperature.
Further, decomposing wood undergoes changes in other chemical constituents
and pH as well as physical structure. Very old, decayed wood can even
become somewhat humified and leave long-lasting substrate resistant to further
decay (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 13, pg 19-par. 4).
359. Logging is removing present and future material that would have
contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter, partly because
the carbon constituents of well-decayed wood are 80-90 percent residual lignin
and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Logging is removing
present and future materials on dry sites in the soil, which the establishment
of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal fungi are positively correlated
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988). Logging is removing present
and future materials that would have also created and maintained diversity
in forest communities. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
Soil properties of pits and mounds differ from those of surrounding soil;
such chemical and topographic diversity in turn affects forest regeneration
processes. All this, especially large fallen trees that reside on the
forest floor for long periods, add to spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity
of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain long-term forest productivity
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
360. Logging is removing fallen tress or future fallen trees that when
oriented along the contour of a slope, the upslope side would be filled with
humus and inorganic material which would have allowed invertebrates and small
vertebrates to tunnel alongside. The downslope side would have provided protective
cover for larger vertebrates. When under a closed canopy, such trees would
have also been saturated with water and act as a reservoir during the dry
part of the year (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988).
361. Logging removes future sites that would have served for reproduction
of tree species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
362. Logging is removing a clearly important function of a system containing
trees (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
363. Note: The phenomenon of nurse logs is widespread in the forest
types of the Pacific North- west. Minore (1972) found that seedlings of both
Sitka spruce and western hemlock were more numerous and taller on so called
rotten logs than on the adjacent forest floor at Cascade Head Experimental
Forest (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
364. Logging is removing so called rotten wood or so called rotten
wood to be. So-called rotten wood is critical as substrate for ectomycorrhizal
formation. E.g., in one forest which contained a coniferous stand of trees
(Eastern Hemlock and White Pine are coniferous), over 95 percent of all active
mycorrhizae were in organic matter of which 21 percent were in decayed wood.
In another study in the northern Rocky Mountains, decayed wood in soil was
important. In moist, mesic, and arid habitat types (Harvey et al. 1979);
it was the most frequent substrate for active ectomycorrhizae on the dry
site, probably because of high moisture levels in the wood. Mycorrhizal
fungi can colonize logs. presumably using them as sources of water, essential
elements and nutrients. (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,
1981).
365. Logging is removing material that would have facilitated a slow
release of essential elements, ameliorated leaching, and provided a growing
substrate for bryophytes. (Harmon et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson et
al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
366. Logging is removing material that would have buffered water and
essential elements released from duff and above-ground processes, especially
processes such as nitrogen fixation in above-ground plants such as hepatics
(Harmon et al. 1986; FEMAT 1993; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison,
1998).
367. Logging removes present and future symplastless wood, which in
terrestrial ecosystems would be primary location for fungal colonization
and would have often acted as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem
disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
368. Logging is removing maternal that is needed for colonization by
fungi and microbes. This is thought to be disrupting one of the most
important stages in essential element cycling (Caza 1993); however, these
processes are still relatively poorly understood (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
369. Logging reduces soil wood. Soil wood contains a disproportionate
amount of the coniferous non-woody roots or ectomycorrhizae in forests (Harvey
et al. 1987) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
370. Logging is removing one of the dominant sources of organic matter
(Voller and Harrison, 1998).
371. Logging is removing an important determinant in soil formation
and composition (Caza 1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
372. Conclusion: What purpose and need is there that humus, humic
acids, pH and the health of the soil – horizons with respect to forest (system)
health, go unobserved, has it is in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project.
Claims that system health will increase by removing (killing) present and
future CWD and its processes / functions, are absurd. What is clearly
shown is a purpose and a need to correct past false promise-based treatments,
which are still being used as a foundation for treatments proposed and approved
in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project. Sound science, with respect
to system health, needs to be considered in order to protect this once fertile
forest; i.e., including but not limited to – animals and plants as well as
diverse fungi and their connections and functions. We especially need to
know more about the fallen tree and soil interface, probably the single most
important habitat and potential niche for the survival of organisms in drastically
altered systems. As the demand for forest products and the ability to utilize
more fiber increases, less material is being left after timber harvesting
or after salvage operations such as the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project.
These operations, in combination with past practices of slash disposal and
site preparation, have reduced organic material in the forest floor, making
CWD management critical for this project. Consequently, no recommendations
for maintaining CWD for this project area have been considered, nor have
bio-indicators been taken into consideration (that we know of). Thus,
a purpose and need exist, for such data, before such treatments be considered.
Ectomycorrhizae absorb moisture and essential elements and translocate them
to their host plants, making ectomycorrhizae essential for the development
of such ecosystems. Therefore, we interpret their presence and abundance
to be a good indicator of a healthy, functioning forest soil. Ectomycorrhizae
have a strong positive relationship with soil organic materials. Soil
wood, humus, and the upper layers of mineral soil that are rich in organic
matter are the primary substrates for the development of ectomycorrhizae.
This project as approved, demands efforts to remove all available fiber at
harvesting sites! We know intensive fiber removal reduces the parent
materials (duff and wood residues) available for the production of organic
reserves in forest soils. This reserve, primarily in the form of humus, decayed
wood, and charcoal, has been shown critical to the support of both nonsymbiotic
nitrogen fixing and ectomycorrhizal activities in forest soils of western
Montana.
Harvest of organic materials on and in northern forest soils have been linked
to reforestation problems –not deer! This study was undertaken to provide
a preliminary estimate of the impact of varying amounts and kinds of soil
organic matter on ectomycorrhizal development in mature western Montana forests.
373. We especially need to know more about the fallen tree – soil interface,
probably the single most important habitat and potential niche for the survival
of organisms in drastically altered systems (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
374. Logging is removing woody duff, which regardless of type or
size, takes considerably longer to decompose than does needle and leaf duff.
Needles, leaves, and small twigs decompose faster than larger woody material
and essential elements are thereby recycled faster in the forest floor. About
140 years are needed for essential elements to cycle in large, fallen trees
and more than 400 years for such trees to become incorporated into the forest
floor; they therefore would interact with the plants and animals of the forest
floor and soil over a long period of forest and stand successional history
(Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
This long period of time reflects on the time the material removed would
have reduced soil erosion.
375. Logging is removing materials that would have played a key role
as erosion control and animal activity (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen
and Graham, 1991).
376. Logging is removing material that would have performed many functions
ranging from soil protection to wildlife and microbial habitat. The
management of CWD is critical for maintaining functioning ecosystems (Graham,
Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).
377. Logging is removal of CWD that would have become incorporated
into the surface soil horizon, as freezing and thawing cycles would have
moved it into the soil. Some of the material could have also been covered
as soil moved downhill.
Logging is removing a large part of CWD that in the advanced
stages of decay could have been an active part of the soil system as soil
wood.
In fact: Because CWD is an important component of a functioning ecosystem,
a portion of this material must be maintained. As the demand for forest products
and the ability to utilize more fiber increases, less material is being left
after timber harvesting or after salvage operations. These operations, in
combination with past practices of slash disposal and site preparation, have
reduced organic material in the forest floor, making CWD management critical
(Harvey and others 1987). Consequently, recommendations for maintaining CWD
for different ecosystems and forest types are needed (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen,
Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).
378. Symplastless wood is also the dominant store of organic matter
in stream ecosystems (Harmon et al. 1986); as such, it is an important source
of essential element and organic matter input. Symplastless wood traps leaf
and duff within aquatic systems, which extends the length of time this material
remains and provides essential elements through decomposition (Triska and
Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986). Symplastless wood provides physical structure
to the ecosystem and fills such roles as sediment storage (Wilford 1984),
protecting the forest floor from mineral soil erosion and mechanical disturbance
during harvesting activities. It ameliorates the affects of cold air drainage
on plants, helps stabilize slopes, and minimizes soil erosion (Maser et al.
1988). Symplastless wood provides elevated germination platforms with reduced
duff fall accumulation and relatively consistent moisture regimes (Harmon
et al. 1986; Maser et al. 1988; Caza 1993; D.F. Fraser, pers. comm., 1995).
In stream ecosystems it protects stream banks from erosion and maintains
channel stability (Triska and Cromack 1979; Sedell et al. 1988). Features
that influence the ability of CWD to fulfill these functions include size
(length and diameter), whether roots are still attached, orientation, degree
of burial, and proportion of the piece that remains submerged (Sedell et
al. 1988) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
379. Conclusion: What purpose and need is there, that the function
of soil protection and churning with respect to forest (system) health go
unobserved has it is in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project.
Claims that system health will increase by this product – processes – function
being removed, is absurd. What it clearly shows, is there is a purpose
and a need to correct past false promise based treatments, which are still
being used as a foundation for treatments proposed and approved in the Painter
Run Windthrow Salvage Project. Sound science, with respect to system
health needs to be considered in order to protect this once fertile forest,
i.e., including but not limited too – animals and plants as well as fungi
diversity and their connections and functions.
What need and purpose is there to remove materials that would have functioned
for more than 200 years and when removed the system would have to recover
and then take at least 100 – 200 years to replace the mass which than would
take 200 or more years to function functions as CWD? That would only
be true is the system was growing back just the way it was before harvest.
Data shows that it not.
380. Something to think about: By removing trees in the Painter
Run Windthrow Salvage Project future uprooting and churning, will be severely
reduced.
The uprooting of trees lifts and mixes soil of the once fertile forest, an
important ecological processes. In some areas soil churning by the
woody roots of wind thrown trees retards development in the soil of impervious
layers of mineral deposits, known as iron pan. Without these processes,
standing pools of water would eventually produce swampy forest sites (Franklin,
Shugart and Harmon, 1987, pg 551).
381. When it comes to ecological stages of trees and their importance
with respect to forest health, in scooping, the USFS replies we do not foster
those ideas or concepts here. Here being the timber sale project.
What parts and processes of the system do they foster?
382. Just as quality and special properties of wood products vary
by tree species. The natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary
by species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981). So, monoculture
and black cherry farming is very harmful.
383. Future forests will contain much less coarse woody debris (CWD),
and that debris will be smaller and of different quality than that seen today.
We have the technology to remove most coarse woody debris from the forest;
in fact, current wood utilization standards encourage such removal.
Moreover, converting natural forests to intensively manipulated stands reduces
tree life spans from centuries to decades; future trees will be much smaller
than they are today, and wood quality will undoubtedly be different from
that of today’s forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
384. The environment greatly affects the quality of the wood.
Such as the sound of a violin.
385. Decaying, fallen trees contribute to long-term accumulation of
soil organic matter, partly because the carbon constituents of well-decayed
wood are 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus. Decaying wood in the soil
and establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal fungi on dry sites
are positively correlated. Fallen trees also create and maintain diversity
in forest communities. Soil properties of pits and mounds differ from those
of surrounding soil; such chemical and topographic diversity in turn affects
forest regeneration processes. All this, especially large fallen trees
that reside on the forest floor for long periods, adds to spatial, chemical,
and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain
long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
386. The mycorrhizal relationships may be important factors in establishment
of seedlings on nurse logs; they are also important to mature trees. Just
as quality and special properties of wood products vary by tree species.
The natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary by species (Franklin,
Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
387. The mycorrhizal relationships may be important factors in establishment
of seedlings on nurse logs; they are also important to mature trees. Just
as quality and special properties of wood products vary by tree species.
The natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary by species (Franklin,
Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).
388. Conclusion: What purpose and need is there that the USFS
does not maintain a record of the different types of wood, which would represent
the quality of product in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project, E.g.
Which species are heartwood forming, false heartwood, no heartwood etc.?
These different qualities represent different forms of protection wood.
Thus the lumber degrade factors are preset when the product was a growing
symplast containing tree. I believe, I may be wrong, I have been wrong
before, so this would just be another one of those times I am wrong, but,
is there not a legal responsibility, when forest health is addressed, to
provide high quality material or so called goods? And then I wonder
how can they determine this, without knowing the anatomy of the structures
harvested. Would you go to a doctor who flunked anatomy? (Shigo, 1999)
389. Public perception as messy logging that wastes wood has influenced
CWD management. This has led to a policy of 'zero waste tolerance.'
The importance of CWD in stream ecosystems and the role of snags are more
widely accepted. Management requires increased understanding of its importance
in the forest management arena, the environmental community, and the general
public (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
390. Future forests will contain much less coarse woody debris (CWD),
and that debris will be smaller and of different quality than that seen today.
We have the technology to remove most coarse woody debris from the forest;
in fact, current wood utilization standards encourage such removal.
Moreover, converting natural forests to intensively manipulated stands reduces
tree life spans from centuries to decades; future trees will be much smaller
than they are today, and wood quality will undoubtedly be different from
that of today’s forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
391. Forest floor diversity is partly maintained by windthrown trees
that create a pit-and-mound topography as they are uprooted (Maser, Tarrant,
Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
392. NOTE Class system chart is on Page 32 (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe
and Franklin, 1988).
393. Certainly our knowledge of biological processes and their interactions
within forest is incomplete, and we know too little about the cumulative
effect of a wide range of stresses on the ecosystem. But integrative, research
at the ecosystem level shows clearly that the many processes operating within
forest interconnect in important ways. Further, diversity of microscopic
and macroscopic plant and animal species is a key factor in maintaining these
processes (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
394. With the latter information known, we need to know more about
the fallen trees contribution to the forest as a whole and to the quality
of the soil in particular (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
395. Managers, of once fertile forest, need to know how the system
will benefit from fallen trees over the long run (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
396. The physical qualities of a fallen tree – moisture, temperature,
essential element content, and pH -- are likely to change markedly
with so called but poorly defined “stand removals, regeneration, reforestation
and so called regrowth” (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
Note, especially when they are removed.
397. Recent and current research in Old-growth forest is revealing
much about the roles and qualities of fallen trees. Understanding this
information may allow use of fallen trees as sensitive barometers of “habitat
health” of a system (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
398. Large, fallen trees are unique, critical, dynamic components of
forests (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
399. Up to a century ago western stream systems also characteristically
contained abundant pieces and aggregations of large, woody debris, but that
debris has been systematically removed to improve navigation, flood control,
and drainage. We now have the technological capability to remove more and
more woody debris from the forest floor. Conversion of forests from virgin
to managed status reduces rotation ages from centuries to decades with a
consequent reduction in average size of trees and change in wood quality
(Maser and Trappe, 1984).
400. Coarse woody debris can be incorporated into the surface soil
horizon as freezing and thawing cycles move CWD into the soil. Additionally,
CWD can be covered as soil moves downhill. Depending on the forest type,
large amounts can be left in the form of decaying tree roots. All of these
materials, in the advanced stages of decay, can be active parts of the soil
system as soil wood. (Carbon Based Cellulose) Because CWD is an important
component of a functioning ecosystem, a portion of this material must be
maintained. As the demand for forest products and the ability to utilize
more fiber increases, less material is being left after timber harvesting
or after salvage operations. These operations, in combination with past practices
of slash disposal and site preparation, have reduced organic material in
the forest floor, making CWD management critical (Harvey and others 1987).
Consequently, recommendations for maintaining CWD for different ecosystems
and forest types are needed (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese,
1994).
401. Obviously, not all of the organic matter in the forest floor is
derived from CWD; some is derived from foliage, fine woody material, or other
organic components. Harmon and others (1986) summarized the few studies showing
the contribution to the forest floor and found it to range from 24 to 74
percent. Our past work showed that CWD contributed up to 58 percent of the
organic materials to the forest floor; in this study CWD contributed up to
100 percent of the organic materials. Because of this variation, the range
of 25 to 50 percent seemed suitable and conservative for the sites we sampled
in the Rocky Mountains (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese,
1994). Question: What percentage of organic matter is added by CWD
in old growth areas in the ANF? What bio-indicator was used to determine
the amount of CWD needed for the functionality of the systems parts and processes
with respect to soil, fauna and flora survival?
402. Ectomycorrhizae absorb moisture and essential elements, and translocate
them to their host plants, making ectomycorrhizae essential for the development
of such ecosystems (Harley and Smith 1983; Harvey and others 1979; Harvey
and others 1987; Marks and Kozlowski 1973; Maser 1990). Therefore, we assume
their presence and abundance to be a good indicator of a healthy, functioning
forest soil. Ectomycorrhizae have a strong positive relationship with soil
organic materials (Harvey and others 1981). Soil wood, humus, and the upper
layers of mineral soil that are rich in organic matter are the primary substrates
for the development of ectomycorrhizae. (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain,
Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).
403. Further more, woody debris is one of the slowest components
of the ecosystem to recover after disturbance. Therefore, short intervals
between timber harvests can reduce ecosystem carbon storage in coarse woody
debris even when the living portion of the ecosystem has recovered. Conversely,
allowing debris to accumulate would result in more carbon, being stored in
the ecosystem than has been predicted by current projections, which assume
that a steady state is reached in less than 100 years (Harmon and Hua, 1991).
404. Past efforts at estimating global detrital storage (including
duff, coarse woody debris, and soil organic matter) have assumed that only
a small fraction of carbon is stored in coarse woody debris. This assumption,
at least for old-growth forests, is a mistake. Given the tack of data on
the mass of coarse woody debris in various biomes, global carbon storage
in woody debris cannot yet be directly estimated (Harmon and Hua, 1991).
405. Studies of a forest containing Fagus – Betula in New England have
29% of the total detritus in coarse woody debris. A forest containing trees
of the Quercus species has been noted to have 9%. More than half the total
detritus (54%) at Andrews is Coarse Woody Debris (Harmon and Hua, 1991).
406. Models of forest recovery that exclude symplastless wood do not
account for the substantial amount of carbon that is being absorbed by recovering
forest in the later stages of succession. (Harmon and Hua, 1991).
407. Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation
of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes
a goal of forest management, managers need information not only on owls or
small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the
food web. Removal of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy
source of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their host
plants (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
408. Fungal diversity has usually been overlooked in considerations
of the management of forest. The more obvious plants and animals attract
the attention of the casual observer, but foresters and ecologists need to
recognize that the health of the forest depends on organisms and processes
below ground (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
409. Data shows leaving materials behind with soil contact is what
is needed for once fertile forest health and not removal of such (Amaranthus,
Trappe and Bednar, 1994).
410. NATIONAL WOOD FIBER NEEDS indicate substantial increases in demand
for wood fiber - based products. This demand has resulted in increased efforts
to remove all available fiber at harvesting sites. Intensive fiber removal
or intense wildfire potentially reduces the parent materials (duff and wood
residues) available for the production of organic reserves in forest soils.
This reserve, primarily in the form of humus, decayed wood, and charcoal,
has been shown critical to the support of both nonsymbiotic nitrogen fixing
and ectomycorrhizal activities in forest soils of western Montana.
Harvest and fire-caused reductions of organic materials on and in northern
forest soils have been linked to reforestation problems. This study was undertaken
to provide a preliminary estimate of the impact of varying amounts and kinds
of soil organic matter on ectomycorrhizal development in mature western Montana
forests (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen, 1981).
411. Both season and site affect the relation between the number of
active ectomycorrhizae and soil organic matter in these ecosystems. In the
dry season or on the drier site, the high soil organic matter content yielded
larger numbers of active ectomycorrhizae than did the low organic matter
conditions. Forest management decisions with potential to disturb soils and
reduce woody residues, particularly in dry Northern Rocky Mountain habitat
types, should take into consideration the importance of soil organic reserves
and their affects on ectomycorrhizae as a factor in forest soil quality.
A consistent effort should be made to retain a moderate quantity of large
woody materials. Preliminary estimates indicate that approximately 25-37
tons/hectare (Harvey, Jurgensen and Larsen, 1981).
412. Evidence that soil organic reserves, particularly wood, play important
roles in maintaining forest site quality emphasizes the need to properly
manage woody materials. Thus, the viewpoint that woody residue represents
only waste or a fire hazard must be reassessed. Forest users and managers
must recognize the benefits, equivalent to long-term fertilization that woody
and other organic reserves contribute to an ecosystem. (Maser and Trappe,
1984).
413. Woody debris is generally removed from streams or forests in the
name of economic progress, but what are the short-term and long-term biological
consequences? (Maser and Trappe, 1984)
414. How is habitat diversity affected, and what is the impact on long-term
site productivity? (Maser and Trappe, 1984)
415. Forests of the future will have far less woody material contributed
to the forest floor than forests of the past, and that material will differ
in size and quality from the woody debris that has been historically prominent
in forest habitats (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
416. Large, fallen trees in various stages of decay contribute much-needed
diversity to terrestrial and aquatic habitats in western forests. When most
biological activity in soil is limited by low moisture availability in summer,
the fallen tree-soil interface offers a relatively cool, moist habitat for
animals and a substrate for microbial and root activity. Intensified utilization
and management can deprive future forests of large, fallen trees. The impact
of this loss on habitat diversity and on long-term forest productivity must
be determined because management need sound information on which to base
resource management decisions (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
417. Decaying trees comprise considerable accumulations of mass, nutrients
and elements in unmanaged, old-growth forest. Some of the largest accumulations
occur in the unmanaged forest of the Pacific Northwest. Coarse woody debris
can range from 130 to 276 tons per acre in stands from 100 to more than 1,000
years old. Although here we are concerned with Douglas fir, neither decaying
wood nor research data are unique to forests of the Pacific Northwest. McFee
and Stone (1966) Observed that decaying wood persisted for more than 100
years in New York and others pointed out that substantial accumulations in
old-growth forest in Poland. These observations evidence the long-term
continuity of decaying trees as structural components in forest (Maser and
Trappe, 1984, pg 16).
418. Please note that other recommendations are provided with respect
to streams, water, oceans, wetlands, etc. in several docs, one being (Maser,
Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988).
419. Something to think about: Thinning stands, in many cases,
leaves areas which contained white pine to prey of the most aggressive killing
diseases on the continent, including seedling diseases as destructive as
Cylindrocladium blight and virulent forms of damping-off, the notorious white
pine blister rust, shoestring root rot, and the ruinous annosus root rot.
Page 353
Reference: Hepting, George, H. July 1971
Disease of Forest and Shade Trees of The United States
US. Dept. Agric. Forest Service Handbook Number 386 658
420. Conclusion: What parts and processes of this once fertile forest
were knowingly sacrificed to the mere interest of production of board foot
and or lumber degrade factors?
What were the tools, indicators, used to understand these parts and processes?
What was the major factor to determine one to be sacrificed?
In summation, we must not sacrifice the options of future generations on
the altar of cost-effectiveness through decisions based on insufficient data.
It is the professional charge of researchers to obtain the needed data and
of managers to apply it (Maser and Trappe, 1984).
They claim to foster concepts of tree biology in old growth areas.
Does this mean they claim to have no responsibility to flora and fauna here
in this Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project?
421. What makes a healthy tree or plant? The availability in the
proper proportions of the right "STEW" - Space, Temperature, Elements and
Water. And the energy of the sun will be used optimally making a tree into
the most efficient system on earth. Everything is
recycled.
422. With respect to space and coarse woody debris, the importance
of reduction of space by fallen trees with respect to endangered species,
browsing by deer, temperature changes, moisture changes, essential element
capacity, animals, fungi diversity and more, the latter references only suggest
a benefit of fallen trees while showing that removal is only a depleting
act causing dysfunction and disruption to the system here, known as a once
fertile forest.
423. With respect to the thoughts of removing trees from the once fertile
forest in order to create space, add sunlight (thinning - logging) the “Self
Thinning Rule of Ecology” has done a good job for a long time (Hardwick,
1987).
424. Once fertile forest, were logged in the past, or treated in ways,
out of the ignorance of tree biology. This project is proof that it
continues. This is a worldwide problem for trees of a forest and cities.
Now, the promoters of logging today want us to believe that coarse woody
debris serve no purpose, are fire hazards, are supposed to be unsightly,
and if removed would address drought problems of the past as well as help
the forest in future drought. They (USFS practicing foresters on Painter
Run Windthrow Salvage Project) also want us to believe that applying ammonium
nitrate, herbicides, putting up deer fences, road building and planting non-native
grass will replace all the functionality, over time, of the material mentioned
to be removed in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project. Not to
mention, they claim the latter will increase the structural functionality
above as well as below ground and thus increase forest health (sorry again
for going beyond committed boundaries in this document). Thus the foundation
of the false premise, that coarse woody debris serves no purpose to system
health, while removal would? Magicians convince you that the hat is
empty. They start with a false premise (SHIGO, 1999).
425. Logging on National Forests INCREASES the risk of forest fires
more than any other human activity, according to the government’s own study.
426. Fire is a natural and beneficial part of ecosystems. Without
it, the ecosystem quickly degrades. But avoiding catastrophic fire risk is
often used to justify logging. Ironically, however, according to the
Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Final Report to Congress, "Timber harvest,
through its affects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuel accumulation,
has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."
427. Clearcutting can change fire climate so that fires start more
easily, spread faster, and burn hotter. If the intent is to seek the
most environmentally sound and cost effective means to reduce the fuel hazard
and fire risk, then the Forest Service should be instructed and fully funded
to implement understory prescribed burning without commercial logging.
The long-term goal should be full restoration of ecological processes, including
fire.
428. Logs become habitat for a variety of invertebrate species shortly
after falling. CWD is used by invertebrates as a source of food, for nesting
and brooding sites, for protection from predators and environmental extremes,
as a source of construction material, and as overwintering and hibernating
sites (Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).
429. Free-living bacteria in woody residues and soil wood fix 30-60%
of the nitrogen in the forest soil. In addition, 20% of soil nitrogen is
stored in these components (Harvey et al. 1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported
that CWD accounted for as much as 45% of above-ground stores of organic matter.
Symplastless wood in terrestrial ecosystems is a primary location for fungal
colonization and often acts as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem
disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza 1993) (Voller
and Harrison, 1998).
430. An unbelievable story is the PHLIGHT OF THE KOALA’S.
431. The plight of this partially blind koala is due to ignorance of
tree basics. Koalas eat the leaves of only about six species of Eucalyptus.
Man loved the koala’s so much, he built his homes close to the Eucalyptus
Groves because he wanted to be close to them. But, the Eucalyptus Groves
go up very fast and burn very hot. So, out of the ignorance of tree
biology, man dug fire trenches. In doing so, the trees were injured
below ground (woody and non-woody roots – for starters). When trees
are threatened or injured – they do something – they respond. Because
of the fire ditches to reduce the threat of fire and over development, most
of the leaves on the declining trees in the area tanned. Tanning is a chemical
process of combining phenol-based substances with proteins, and the disruption
of hydrogen bonds leaves the protein indigestible. In one sense the hydrogen
bonds, are held open by toothpicks. The enzymes of the koala would
enter to digest the leaves. Tanning is like, removing the toothpicks.
The animals ate and ate, but received little nutrition. Lots of moisture,
wet spot developed. A spirochete similar to syphilis entered and was
passed along by mating. Many koalas died. The good news is that development
in the area was not only stopped, but many developed areas will be returned
to their original state.
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