Biological conservation in managed forests of the Northern Forest region relies on structural retention practices developed in a stable environment. Structural retention is a widely applied forestry practice used to conserve old trees, sensitive species, and other biodiversity components. It ranges from retaining scattered old trees to old growth forest and is used to help meet forest certification requirements. Climate change is projected to change regional forest ecosystems over the next century and may reduce the conservation effectiveness of structural retention.
The project goal is to determine how to make structural retention practices effective in the longterm. The project will (1) re-survey plots to assess the long-term effectiveness of structural retention and (2) use modelling to project future effectiveness of structural retention under climate warming. Re-measurements of trees, logs, snags, sensitive species, and microclimate and will be used to determine how well scattered trees, forest patches, and stands have maintained forest structure, sensitive species, and microclimate 20 years after logging of surrounding forest. Modelling will use climate projections and microclimate data to predict which of these retention practices are effective for maintaining biodiversity components and sensitive species under different future climate scenarios. The research findings will be shared through peer-reviewed papers, a forester webinar and workshop, and how-to materials with guidelines which foresters and landowners can use to apply the results. This will help all land managers improve the long-term effectiveness of conservation in managed forests and help them meet new forest certification requirements.