Canadian Forest Service Publications
Wildfire in boreal forest catchments influences leaf litter subsidies and consumer communities in streams: implications for ripirian management strategies. 2016. Musetta-Lambert,J.; Muto, E.; Kreutzweiser, D.; Sibley, P. Forest Ecology and Management 391:29-41.
Year: 2017
Issued by: Great Lakes Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 37269
Language: English
Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2017.01.028
† This site may require a fee
Plain Language Summary
This paper presents results from our White River riparian research project, ongoing for some years now. This is the first paper that will come from that work, now that the project field work has been completed. The paper points out that if we are going to manage forests under an emulation of natural disturbance (END) paradigm, then we need to understand the implications for riparian (near-water) forests and their influences in the adjacent aquatic systems. The results show that the common practice of retaining stream-side buffers do not produce results in streams that are similar to those that arise from natural disturbance (fire). They also show that fire disturbance in these boreal forest catchments significantly changed riparian forest structure, increased the input and complexity of leaf litter as energy subsidies to streams, and had measurable, positive effects on stream invertebrate communities. These effects on streams can set targets and benchmarks for using careful riparian harvesting as a means to emulate the effects of fire on streams, under the END. This paper presents results from our White River riparian research project, ongoing for some years now. This is the first paper that will come from that work, now that the project field work has been completed. The paper points out that if we are going to manage forests under an emulation of natural disturbance (END) paradigm, then we need to understand the implications for riparian (near-water) forests and their influences in the adjacent aquatic systems. The results show that the common practice of retaining stream-side buffers do not produce results in streams that are similar to those that arise from natural disturbance (fire). They also show that fire disturbance in these boreal forest catchments significantly changed riparian forest structure, increased the input and complexity of leaf litter as energy subsidies to streams, and had measurable, positive effects on stream invertebrate communities. These effects on streams can set targets and benchmarks for using careful riparian harvesting as a means to emulate the effects of fire on streams, under the END.
