PROJECT PURPOSE AND MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS (summarized)
The Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) epidemic has shifted from controlling the outbreak to mitigating its impact on communities and the environment. It is likely that significant areas of infested forest will never be salvaged due to the large area that is impacted. Forest managers must now make decisions about which stands should be salvaged, which should be left to regenerate naturally, and which stands may require rehabilitation.
Existing forest growth models are not designed to deal with the complex stands that will regenerate after Mountain Pine Beetle. In contrast, SORTIE is specifically designed to simulate the development of irregular multi-species stands (Coates et. al 2003).
This project will prepare a comprehensive data set that describes stand structures and regeneration found following pine beetle attack, across diverse site types, from one to ten years following attack, and across several biogeoclimatic subzones in the north-central Interior. The data from this project will have immediate application through the analysis and description of relationships between ecosystems, stand structure, and regeneration. The data will also have long-term benefits because it will allow researchers to improve models of regeneration, growth
and yield, and timber supply. Those models are widely applied in forest management, so the impact of improved data is widespread. The data will be collected so that it can specifically be used in models that are currently being applied in the study area. Models used for Sustainable Forest Management Plans in the Lakes and Morice IFPA area can be updated with the data that is collected, with a focus on successional pathways and growth and yield. Further development of SORTIE-ND will be enabled through the use of this dataset to refine tree recruitment models.
The project will show forest managers which stands will have the highest success of regenerating naturally. Based on anecdotal information, some ecosystems may regenerate very quickly and fully following MPB, while others will not. If these differences are significant, then allowing certain stands to regenerate naturally will have significantly larger timber supply impacts than other stands. Knowing which stands have the best chance of successful regeneration will allow forest managers to prioritise stands for harvest in a way that will reduce the size of the
anticipated fall-down to the AAC. Even a small reduction in the long-term fall-down will have large benefits by reducing the impact on communities, reducing the social costs of transition, and ensuring that long-term revenues from the forest remain stable.
