9. Logging – Other Habitat and Potential Niches

290.  The fasted way to destroy an organism is to destroy its niche – the place where it lives and reproduces (A New Tree Biology Dictionary, Shigo).

291.  Logging is removing a present and future finite resource that create a myriad of changing habitats through time as they decompose and recycle into the forest soil and new, living trees benefit. (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg45-fig 2.16).    

292.  Preservation of a threatened or endangered species involves preservation of its habitat and the diversity that habitat entails. When such becomes a goal of forest management, managers need information not only on owls or small mammals, but also on the mycorrhizal fungi that form the base of the food web.  Removal of ectomycorrhizal tree hosts removes the energy source of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which will not fruit without their host plants (Amaranthus, Trappe and Bednar, 1994).

293.  Logging is removing, probably the single most, present and future, important habitat and potential niche for the survival of organisms in drastically altered systems.  Of things we need to know, we especially need to know more about the fallen tree – soil interface  (Maser and Trappe, 1984, abstract).   Recent and current research in Old-growth forest is revealing much about the roles and qualities of fallen trees.  Understanding this information may allow use of fallen trees as sensitive barometers of “habitat health” of a system (Maser and Trappe, 1984,pg49-par1).   

294.  Logging is removing present and future multitudes of both external and internal habitats that change and yet persist through the decades.  One needs an understanding of the synergistic affects of constant small changes within a persistent large structure to appreciate the dynamics of a fallen tree and its function in an ecosystem (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 1).      
   
295.  Logging is removing present and future forest floor diversity, which is partly maintained by windthrown trees that create a pit-and-mound topography as they are uprooted (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg34-par2).   This provides potential habitat as well as conditions for niches.

296.  Logging is removing present and future functions of the system ranging from soil protection to wildlife and microbial habitat. The management of coarse woody debris is critical for maintaining functioning ecosystems (Graham, Harvey, Jurgensen, Jain, Tonn and Page-Dumroese, 1994).

297.  Logging is removing present and future stuff that would have provided conditions for habitat as well as certain niches for more than 400 years.  Technically, woody duff, regardless of type or size, takes considerably longer to decompose than does needle and leaf duff.  Needles, leaves, and small twigs decompose faster than larger woody material and essential elements are thereby recycled faster in the forest floor. About 140 years are needed for essential elements to cycle in large, fallen trees and more than 400 years for such trees to become incorporated into the forest floor; they therefore interact with the plants and animals of the forest floor and soil over a long period of forest and stand successional history (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg36-last par). 

298.  Logging is removing present and future stuff which when removed cannot perform its unique functions such as but not limited too the following - soil erosion reduction, synergistic affects on soil development, store nutrients and essential elements (for forest inhabitants), store water (for forest inhabitants), provide a source of energy and nutrient flow, serve as seedbeds and provide habitat for decomposers and heterotrophs (Harmon and Hua, 1991).

299.  Logging increases soil erosion.  Logging affects soil development in an unhealthy fashion.  Logging removes designed storehouses for nutrients and water for soil, animals and plants.  Logging removes a potentially large source of energy (nutrients) and essential elements.  Logging removes seedbeds for plants.  Logging removes important habitat for fungi and arthropods. We know, During decomposition, logs and other forms of coarse woody debris (CWD) reduce erosion, affect soil development, store nutrients and water, are a potentially large source of energy (nutrients) and essential elements, serve as a seed bed for plants, and form an important habitat for fungi and arthropods (Kropp, 1982).

300.  Logging stops the processes, which would take place between a fallen tree and its surroundings, which would have increased, as decomposition would have continued.  E.g., The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water, and essential elements (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12-par1).  Logging kills this system processes by means of disruption and depletion causing dysfunction.

301.  Logging is removing structural components of great importance for forest dynamics and forest biodiversity.  The decomposition of trees provides an important link in cycling on nutrients in ecosystems.  In addition, many species of plants, fungi and animals are dependent on symplastless trees for salts of essential elements, nutrients, habitat and or substrate and nesting (Kruys and Jonsson, 1999).

302.  Logging reduces and or removes future CWD. Fallen trees that are oriented along the contours of a slope seem to be used more by vertebrates than are trees oriented across contours, especially on steep slopes. Large, stable trees lying along contours help reduce erosion by forming a barrier to creeping and raveling soils.  Soil and nutrients deposited along the up slope side of fallen trees reduce loss of nutrients from the site. Such spots are excellent for the establishment and growth of vegetation, including tree seedlings.  Vegetation becomes established on and helps stabilize this "new soil", and as invertebrates and small vertebrates begin to burrow into the new soil, they not only nutritionally enrich it with their feces and urine but also constantly mix it by their burrowing activities (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg 4).

303.  Logging removes the habitat, i.e., the would be creations, of inner space within a log, as it would decompose, which many organisms such as plant roots, mites, collembolans, amphibians, and small mammals, must await to enter.  The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water, and nutrients as well as essential elements between fallen tree and its surrounding would have increased as long as aging process continued (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 12-par1).

304.  Logging is removing present and future logs, which would otherwise serve a key role as erosion control and animal activity (Page-Dumroese, Harvey, Jurgensen and Graham, 1991).

305.  Logging is removing large, fallen trees or trees that will fall in various stages of decay.  Logging is removing parent material, which would contribute much-needed diversity to terrestrial and aquatic habitats in western forests. When most biological activity in soil is limited by low moisture availability in summer, the material removed, fallen tree-soil interface would have offered a relatively cool, moist habitat for animals and a substrate for microbial and root activity. Intensified utilization and management can deprive future forests of large, fallen trees. The impact of this loss on habitat diversity and on long-term forest productivity must be determined because management needs sound information on which to base resource management decisions (Maser and Trappe, 1984, Abstract
).   

306.  Logging conifers is removing present and future tissues that perform specific functions. When a tree dies, the various tissues provide distinguishable substrates that provide different niches (Maser and Trappe, 1984 pg10-par3).       

307.  Logging removes habitat for the establishment of niches. As a symplastless fallen tree would have progressed from decay class I to class II, the scavengers would have been replaced by competitors with the enzyme systems needed to decompose the more complex compounds in wood. The fungi that would have been involved in this activity are often mutually antagonistic, so that a given part of the tree may have been occupied by only one fungus that would have excluded others by physical or chemical means (Maser and Trappe, 1984,pg27-par4).   (We call this altered area a niche)  This fungus would be a part or the system.  How would this fungus survive without proper habitat for a niche? 

308.  Logging is removing present and future persistent capacity for new habitat.  As the fallen tree progresses through decay Classes II and III of decomposition, slippage of the bark, and eventually decayed sapwood, removes a favorable environment and the organisms within it from the top and sides of the tree; that material, however, does not disappear.  Most of it accumulates loosely alongside the log to provide a new habitat favorable to many of the same organisms as before, plus larger animals, such as slugs, snails, salamanders, and small mammals (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 29-par 3).  

309.  Logging is removing present and future ecological stages of trees, which would have served with great importance.   It is in the class IV stage that the fallen tree presents the most diversified habitat and hence supports the greatest array of inhabitants. The decayed heartwood (of heartwood forming trees) is relatively stable - so plants that become established on it have time to grow substantial root systems (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 3).  

310.  Logging is removing a gradually changing myriad of internal and external habitats.  Plant and animal communities within a fallen tree are very different from those outside, but both progress through a series of orderly changes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par7).  Questions on Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project: How many tons per acre was the target in this project?  How about habitat?

311.  Logging removes the structure, which would have eventually had a community surrounding it that would have been complex (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 36-par7).    

312.  Logging is removing connectors.  A fallen tree is a connector between the successional stages of a community; it would have provided continuity of habitat from the previous forest through subsequent successional stages (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).    

313.  Logging is removing a large, would be, fallen or fallen tree, which would have provided a physical link – an essential element savings account – through time and across successional stages.  Because of its persistence, the log or logs would have provided a long- term, stable structure on which some animal (both invertebrate and vertebrate) populations appear to depend on for survival (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 38-par 1).    

314.  Machine entry in an area, which contains trees, reduces diversity because heavy equipment fragments and scatters class IV and V so called rotten wood.  Habitat diversity declines to a fraction of what had been available, probably fewer kinds of organisms can thrive.  Further, because woody substrates serve as long-term soil organic material and essential element reservoirs, increasingly intensive timber management, coupled with shorter rotations, could significantly alter the role of decaying wood in the essential element cycling processes (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 48-par 1).   

315.  Logging is removing present and future structures that would have interacted with its environment through internal surface areas. A newly fallen tree is not yet a habitat for plants or most animals. But once organisms gain entrance to the interior they consume and break down wood cells and fibers. Larger organisms – mites, collembolans, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, amphibians, and small mammals must await the creation of internal spaces before they can enter.  The flow of plant and animal populations, air, water, and essential elements between a fallen tree and its surroundings increases as decomposition continues (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988. pg41-par1).   

316.  Logging is removing present and future habitats. Habitats, both external and internal, are influenced by tree size. An uninterrupted supply of new, immature wood in young forests decomposes and recycles essential elements and energy rapidly. Habitats provided by the death of the symplast of young trees are short-lived and rapidly changing. (E.g., specifically speaking, heartwood-forming trees lack chemical alterations required for production on heartwood). In contrast, the less frequent, more irregular mortality of the symplast of large trees in old forests is analogous to slow-release fertilization. The lasting quality of large fallen trees creates stable habitats in which large woody debris accumulates. Scattered accumulations of large woody debris are associated with openings in the forest canopy. Large fallen trees in such an area often contact each other physically, creating external habitats of intense biological activity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg44-par2).   

317.  Logging is removing materials, that in time, would be decaying and would have contributed to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter, partly because the carbon constituents of the future well-decayed wood would have 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988. pg44-par3).

318.  Logging is removing material that would be incorporated in the soil and would have aided the establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal fungi on dry sites  (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988, pg43-par3).

319.  Logging is removing material that in time, would have added to spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe, and Franklin, 1988, pg43-par3).

320.  Logging is removing present and future essential habitat for a variety of invertebrates and vertebrates (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,  1981). 
Logging is removing present and future sites used for lookouts, feeding and reproduction, protection and cover, sources and storage of food, and bedding (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,  1981).  Logging is removing present and future logs, which the moisture content, would have made them particularly important as habitat for amphibians (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,  1981).  

321.  One technical report [(Maser et al. (1979)] based on the Blue Mountains revealed logging is removing present and future habitat for at least 178 vertebrates, 14 amphibians and reptiles, 115 birds, and 49 mammals; they tabulated use by log decay classes for each species. In fact, logs are considered important in early successional stages as well as in old- growth forests. The persistence of large logs has special importance in providing wildlife with habitat continuity over long periods and through major disturbances (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,  1981).  My question is how many of the latter organisms and others depend on CWD for moisture during dry times and coolness during heat waves.  How many organisms, have become extinct because of the depletion of CWD.  

322.  Logging is removing present and future habitat for mycorrhizae.  So-called rotten wood is critical as substrate for ectomycorrhizal formation.  In one forest which contained coniferous trees, over 95 percent of all active mycorrhizae were in organic matter of which 21 percent were in decayed wood.   In another study in the northern Rocky Mountains, decayed wood in soil was important.  In moist, mesic, and arid habitat types (Harvey et al. 1979); it was the most frequent substrate for active ectomycorrhizae on the dry site, probably because of high moisture levels in the wood. Mycorrhizal fungi can colonize logs presumably using them as sources of water, essential elements and nutrients.  (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others,  1981). 

323.  Logging is removing present and future coarse woody debris, which were designed to play numerous key roles in providing habitat for organisms in ecosystems (Voller and Harrison, 1998).   

324.  Logging is removing present and future species of materials that many invertebrates require (species specific), and materials of different decay stages of CWD, which communities of invertebrates would otherwise occupy, and use (Harmon al. 1986; Samuelsson et al. 1994) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).   Note a healthy mature tree may have a thousand or more infections (Shigo, 1999).  Insects infest, microorganism infect.  For starters, many types of infections are species specific, such as fungi infections, e.g., mycorrhizae.  Therefore system health would greatly depend on species diversity.  E.g., not clear-cut black cherry stands with CWD removed.

325.  Conclusion: Logging does not appear to increase habitat.  System health and habitat interconnect.  What purpose and need is there, that the capacity and ability, of CWD, to function as habitat, be removed in the name of forest heath such as the claims in the Painter Run Windthrow Salvage Project?


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