Silvicultural choices in combating climate change

Background/Question/Methods Silviculturists apply basic understanding of forest ecosystem processes to develop manipulations of forest composition and structure to help land owners or agencies that manage public land achieve their land management objectives.  Increasingly, such objectives include strategies to mitigate or adapt to climate change.  This demands a new level of integrating uncertainty into silvicultural planning.  Silviculturists can use models of change in tree species habitat distributions under different emissions scenarios and climate models developed by Iverson, Prasad, Matthews, and Peters to estimate the impact of climate change on land management objectives.  This paper will offer a case study applying these models to the Southern Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau ecoregion.  Change in species habitat will be examined for its impact on ecological, economic, and social land management goals. Silvicultural strategies explored include mitigation and a suite of adaptations including managing for migration corridors, facilitated migration, identification and protective management of refugia, promotion of biological diversity.  We also explore the interaction between silvicultural strategies that address climate change and those that address other regional challenges.
Results/Conclusions

Black cherry (Prunus serotina) and red maple (Acer rubrum) are species of current high importance in the overstory of forests of the Southern Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau.  The habitat for both is projected to decline in abundance in the region over the next century, with greater uncertainty in the amount of decrease for red maple. Habitat for white oak (Quercus alba) is projected to increase under most low emissions scenarios and to stay the same under high emissions scenarios.  Yet at present, both black cherry and red maple are easier to regenerate than white oak, which is currently of low importance.  In fact, without aggressive and expensive manipulations, black cherry and red maple can replace white oak in current climates.  This places increased importance on development of corridors in which practices to ensure white oak regeneration succeeds, on the protection of white oak seed sources from insect herbivory, and on some thoughtful planting.  Mitigation research conducted in this ecoregions suggests that carbon sequestration in current second growth forests managed for high-value wood products is comparable to that in unmanaged second growth.