PARENT SESSION
Wednesday, August 9, 1:30-5:00 pm
COS 70 - Forest ecology and management
L-5, L-6, L-7, Lobby Level, Cook Convention Center
Presiders: S Bigelow and C Miller
Appalachian silviculture and biodiversity study: salamander populations 8-12 years post- harvest.
Haas, Carola*,1, Homyack, Jessica1, 1 Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
ABSTRACT- In 1994, a collaborative team initiated a study of the effects of 7 silvicultural treatments on understory biodiversity in Appalachian hardwood forests. We established 8 replicate study sites in Virginia and West Virginia, collected pre-harvest data, and randomly assigned treatments to the plots within each study site. The treatments included a control, removal of competing understory trees using herbicide, group selection, shelterwood, a two-aged harvest, a commercial clearcut, and a silvicultural clearcut. Our team has studied changes in understory herbaceous plants (including medicinal plants and invasive species), oak regeneration, soil erosion, and terrestrial salamander populations. Salamander populations on the 4 sites with the longest running data sets (8-11 years) showed some annual fluctuation on the control plots, a 50% increase on the herbicide plots, and an average 57% reduction across the 5 treatments with canopy removal. Both site and treatment effects were significant (alpha less than 0.05) in an analysis of covariance. On the 2 study sites with 10 and 11 years of data post-harvest, salamander populations appear to be increasing on the plots with canopy removal, but remain below 60% of the pre-harvest levels in 9 out of 10 of these plots. Continuing research on these study sites will address mechanisms for and ecological consequences of change in forest salamander populations.
Key words: temperate deciduous forest, Amphibia--Caudata, population ecology