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- [Tutor] So our final presenter

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of this contributed talk
is Christopher Woodall.

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With the USDA Forest Service.

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He will be presenting,

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"Completing the Life Cycle of Trees:

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Northern Forests Dead
Wood and Tree Regeneration

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in the Context of Forest
Resource Assessments."

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- [Christopher] Hello, I'm Chris Woodall

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with the USDA Forest Service,

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research development in
Durham, New Hampshire.

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My colleagues and I would like to share

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some emerging results we have

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in regards to assessing the
dynamics of tree species

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in New England.

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Notably, tree regeneration
in dead wood information

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based on recent
inventories in this region.

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As an outline, I would like
to provide a little bit

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of context regarding tree
regeneration in New England

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bring in some information about
recent inventories we have.

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Some of the details regarding those.

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Discuss some emerging results

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and next steps in this line of research.

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So as far as the context
of tree regeneration,

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we can really look at our future forest

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against the backdrop of global change.

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And global change is really bringing in

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traditional stressors

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in new ones that we
haven't really seen before.

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Certainly we have insects and disease.

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We have a loss of winter
with climate change,

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coupled with episodic precipitation.

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We have urbanization and fragmentation,

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which can often bring in invasive species.

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We have evolving forest product markets

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are really changing what
products are harvested out

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of our forest and how we can manage them.

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And certainly browse impacts.

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So regeneration analysis
implicitly requires

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a greater context.

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Certainly if we have field crews,

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such as in this picture
out counting seedlings

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across the landscape,

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trying to best utilize that information

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for the future is of high importance.

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There are many barriers to
native tree species regeneration.

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This is just a quick lit lit review,

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going over many different
factors all the way

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from mesophication over
a long-term time period,

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forest conversion development,

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browse, native plant invasion,
alien plant invasion,

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lack of resource management
plans, degradation, et cetera.

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So there's numerous barriers

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to native species tree regeneration.

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Just starting to look at some

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of the emerging research on this topic,

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a recent study by Vickers et
al really found a divergence

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between what tree species
were in the canopy

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or in the overstory

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compared to the seedlings
in the understory.

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So that if you had a canopy removal

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during forest management operations,

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you weren't necessarily guaranteed

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to have the same forest regenerate.

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So in parts of New England in this map,

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the Northern hardwood
regions is probably that one

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that suffers the most
from that kind of dynamic.

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Whereas the spruce for forest

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in the North display less attributes.

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Further context for New England.

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And that's considering the
four states of Maine, Vermont,

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New Hampshire and New York
looking at forest inventories

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that have been going on annually

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since the early 2000's.

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We have percentage of young forest

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that's classified by inventory crews

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decreasing from 9% in
2005 to about 3% in 2019.

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So a somewhat steep drop

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in the amount of young forest
seedlings at the same time

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or having a decrease,
perhaps reaching a high there

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in the late 2000s when
our forest area maxed out

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across this states.

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saplings and then fairly
stable with recruitment.

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So there is a fair number of
seedlings across landscape,

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but the future forest

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and where it's headed is really
highly context dependent.

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Relative density.

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So using self thinning
metrics to determine stocking

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across these four States.

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We had 46 million acres total in the 2000s

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and most were fully stocked
in terms of self thinning.

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You can have a lot of small
trees and be fully stocked

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just as much as a lot of large trees.

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So size is independent

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of the stocking metrics that
we're currently working on.

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But we look now in the 2000s, 2010s,

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we have a decrease of forest land area,

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which we're seeing across
most states in New England,

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just a slight dip,

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but we're having a rapid
increase in the amount

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of overstock conditions in
terms of size density metrics

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and a little bit of a
reduction in the understocked.

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So we've got fully stock
forest that are starting

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to level off in terms of forest area.

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So potentially a lot of
management decisions to be made

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in the near future or for
our future generation.

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So a lot of the initial
information was based

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off the Forest Inventory
and Analysis Program

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as part of the USDA Forest Service.

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In the following results I
have later on really pertained

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to this inventory where
you can access this data

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via the field data link.

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And or if you to just
have population estimates

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developed for you,

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you can visit this link to the right.

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So prior to 2012, forest
inventories just did

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a stocking count of seedlings.

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So if they're above a certain
minimum height, over a foot,

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at least a foot or so,
feel crudest did account

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and didn't have a DBH.

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So DBH less than one inch,
then they were just counted

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by species, but there's
many different size classes

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as it were to regeneration.

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So beginning in 2012,

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across the 24 Northern states feel crews

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during the summer started
measuring seedlings

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according to length classes.

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So there's six different length classes,

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which really refines our
information on recruitment,

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regeneration dynamics, and of
which these merging results

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I share with you, this publication GTR-148

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provides a lot of the details
regarding this inventory.

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Some of the emerging information
prior to this inventory,

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this has all the information we had

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about living trees in the
Northeast, very useful, right?

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The size classes are
inches, but you get an idea

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of the distribution of maples
and oaks and birch and spruce

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far across the Northeast.

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But we didn't know about what was going on

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really about the size distribution
below a DBH of one inch.

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But with this new inventory,

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we're starting to gain a
perspective of what is going on

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in the understory to a higher resolution,

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which also affords the opportunity

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to link it to other components

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of the inventory system,
which I'll get to shortly.

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So in context of the live trees,

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what are we seeing
across these four states?

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What are the most populous,
most abundant tree species

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in the understory

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for that smallest size
class two to six inches?

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We're talking about an
overwhelming dominance

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by red maple, followed
up by sugar maple, ash,

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balsam fur, striped maple.

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And as I'll note, several
times to this talk,

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just because it's very abundant

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in the smallest size
class like striped maple

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that doesn't mean the silvics
or its competitive strategies,

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wherever put it into the site every class,

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but it is what we have to deal with.

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And that's what we have in
our understory currently.

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Looking at a larger size
class for seedlings,

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so greater than five feet
and less than one inch DBH,

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so less smaller than sapling,

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but one might term
advanced tree regeneration

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is heavily dominated by American beech

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across this region,
followed up by red maple.

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And once again, we've got sugar maples,

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striped maple and white
ash in the running there

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in the top five.

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So where does that bring
us to our very large trees?

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So you can see the only
one that sticks around

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is sugar maple.

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Eastern white pine by far
do the land use history

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and et cetera over the
past a hundred plus years,

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it's the dominant large tree
across New England states.

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Almost twice that, probably
twice that of sugar maple

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as far as its abundance of that size.

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So where will stand development

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and global change take New
England seedlings next?

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So right now, if we look
at the population estimate

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based on this inventory, our
smallest seedlings number

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in 170 billion, that's a lot, right?

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So next largest size

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are along this one can imagine
a self-thinning trajectory

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our largest seedlings, 31 billion.

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There's tremendous amount, right?

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There's a tremendous
amount of regeneration.

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Vast majority of it will never make it

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to a very large size tree.

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We started to talk about large trees.

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We're talking about 54 million

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and we kind of think backwards about this.

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These large trees really
evolve from land use conversion

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et cetera, agricultural abandonment,

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well over a hundred years ago.

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So there was a different abundance

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and diversity of tree species
in the understory then.

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It's probably not similar
to what we have now.

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So the big question is, where
will these small seedlings,

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these larger seedlings, where
are they headed in the future?

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And what will those fours look like?

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Undoubtedly, they will look
different than what occurred

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in the past, in the 1800s or so,

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as far as the understory
and what developed

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from agricultural abandonment, et cetera.

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Another important thing
that we're inventorying

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is browse impact.

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So we have five classes of browse impact

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that we assess on our inventory plots.

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Everything from very low,

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plot is inside a
well-maintained enclosure.

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To moderate there's
evidence there's browsing

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on the seedlings and
whatever can be eaten.

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As you know, deer, they
can reach up pretty high

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on a browse line or very
high where it's sometimes

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just heavy repeated
browsing, hardly anything.

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And the understory it's
just very, very evident

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the deer are hitting a site really hard.

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Looking in some of our
emerging information

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from that, we are working
on regeneration dashboard.

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We hope to release fairly soon,

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but relays kind of the
observations of low browse.

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So you can see on the
map of New England there,

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the plot locations that are
identified at low browse

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and the estimates of seedlings
by those length classes,

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along with some information
on our understory vegetation

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to help us understand
competition in the understory

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for tree regeneration,
along with distribution

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by survey units of stand size classes.

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So if you're talking about sawtimber

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or pole size classes, et cetera.

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If we look at our moderate
and or high browse plots.

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You can see distribution there in the map,

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but you can see almost having
in the abundance of seedlings.

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So very noticeable the effect

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that browse has on tree
seedling abundance.

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Interestingly, the impact

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on understory vegetation is negligible

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in terms of shrubs and grasses

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and forbs and the tree
abundance is about the same.

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So it's the seedlings that
obviously are getting hit

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by browse across the region.

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So, to take a step back a bit,

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we've talked about the
understory in detail

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and we have a lot more
emerging research to be done

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on that and data that would be synthesized

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and remeasured in the future,

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but across time, here
are forest inventories

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around the nation,

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started in the early 1900s.

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Back then all you needed was a piece

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of cardboard and write
the word USDA on it,

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the acronym and jumping
in your old vehicle

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and wear a suit and count trees,

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but things have changed.

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Back then, you're just really looking

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at merchantable tree attributes.

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That was the first important thing,

259
00:13:51,030 --> 00:13:53,390
stocking and merchant tree attributes.

260
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And then they started looking more

261
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about in addition to that
measuring regeneration.

262
00:13:59,860 --> 00:14:02,130
And as I mentioned
previously for many decades

263
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that was just a stocking assessment.

264
00:14:03,670 --> 00:14:08,453
Wasn't a lot of detail about
size classes, et cetera.

265
00:14:09,950 --> 00:14:11,100
Coming into the 2000s,

266
00:14:11,100 --> 00:14:13,630
we started recognizing the
importance of dead wood.

267
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So he started inventorying
standing dead trees

268
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and down dead trees.

269
00:14:17,010 --> 00:14:21,060
And now across the North for
the past eight plus years,

270
00:14:21,060 --> 00:14:23,200
we've been measuring regeneration

271
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in a lot more detail
and things like browse.

272
00:14:26,510 --> 00:14:29,440
So we have a lot more data available

273
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to us to more holistically
evaluate individual tree species

274
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:35,463
in our dynamics across lands.

275
00:14:37,950 --> 00:14:39,820
So looking at downed dead woods,

276
00:14:39,820 --> 00:14:42,060
starting to look at the relationship

277
00:14:42,060 --> 00:14:45,488
or potential relationship
or interaction, et cetera,

278
00:14:45,488 --> 00:14:48,810
the dynamics of live and
dead and downed dead wood,

279
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we can look at that across US

280
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in terms of size class
changes across time.

281
00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:57,410
So you can get downed dead wood.

282
00:14:57,410 --> 00:15:01,090
This is for the entire
United States biomass change

283
00:15:01,090 --> 00:15:02,860
across the decades.

284
00:15:02,860 --> 00:15:05,550
So from 2000s to the 2010s

285
00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:09,480
by size class of pieces.

286
00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:12,110
This is downed dead wood,
it's transect diameter

287
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:14,736
but you see a shift.

288
00:15:14,736 --> 00:15:19,736
These biomass change across
170 plus Bailey's eco sections.

289
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:27,680
So basically ecosystems across
the US forest ecosystems.

290
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:29,931
You see a shift of increasing amounts

291
00:15:29,931 --> 00:15:34,931
of smaller size dead wood,
and rather stable amounts

292
00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:37,810
of the larger size, except
for pulses that come

293
00:15:37,810 --> 00:15:41,073
from obvious episodic disturbances.

294
00:15:41,930 --> 00:15:43,420
But this kind of rhymes a bit

295
00:15:43,420 --> 00:15:47,940
with our finding of stocking
across at least the North.

296
00:15:47,940 --> 00:15:49,620
And we're starting to see across the US

297
00:15:49,620 --> 00:15:53,890
of highly stock stands
increasing in abundance,

298
00:15:53,890 --> 00:15:55,751
hence self thinning.

299
00:15:55,751 --> 00:15:58,480
Hence, you're gonna see an increase

300
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:03,243
of smaller downed dead wood
occurring in the ecosystems.

301
00:16:04,330 --> 00:16:09,330
standing dead wood, a
little bit of an increase

302
00:16:09,840 --> 00:16:14,840
in the very large kind
of sizes, a large amounts

303
00:16:16,300 --> 00:16:19,075
and large sizes of standing
dead trees, which is indicative

304
00:16:19,075 --> 00:16:21,640
of episodic disturbance events,

305
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:23,490
especially in these more mature stands,

306
00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:25,130
but not necessarily a shift

307
00:16:26,532 --> 00:16:29,203
of any large degree across time.

308
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:34,090
Looking at live trees,
you certainly see this

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00:16:34,924 --> 00:16:37,420
a bit of a shift from a decrease

310
00:16:38,455 --> 00:16:42,700
in the amount of biomass
change for the smallest size,

311
00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:46,257
less than 27 meters and
a shift to the right

312
00:16:46,257 --> 00:16:47,820
for the largest size

313
00:16:47,820 --> 00:16:51,050
with once again, kind of is indicative

314
00:16:51,050 --> 00:16:55,460
of a maturing resource
across the entire US.

315
00:16:55,460 --> 00:16:59,160
Now, we think about all this
in the context of regeneration.

316
00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:00,880
It's interesting to see
how we might combine

317
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:02,580
some of this as far as the dynamics

318
00:17:02,580 --> 00:17:04,583
to really understanding what's going on.

319
00:17:10,678 --> 00:17:11,511
And we're able to do that

320
00:17:11,511 --> 00:17:15,850
by combining seedling information,

321
00:17:15,850 --> 00:17:18,350
those size classes with
live tree information,

322
00:17:18,350 --> 00:17:20,860
size classes, standing dead trees

323
00:17:20,860 --> 00:17:24,380
or otherwise term snags
and downed dead wood.

324
00:17:24,380 --> 00:17:26,100
Otherwise this term coarse woody debris

325
00:17:26,100 --> 00:17:27,800
for the purposes of our inventory.

326
00:17:28,910 --> 00:17:31,250
So we have a focus species
here who is sugar maple,

327
00:17:31,250 --> 00:17:32,084
which is in red.

328
00:17:32,084 --> 00:17:34,560
Yeah, all other tree species on plots

329
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:35,393
in which have occurred.

330
00:17:35,393 --> 00:17:37,980
So it's competitors across the landscape.

331
00:17:37,980 --> 00:17:40,430
So we can start to see
about recruitment dynamics,

332
00:17:40,430 --> 00:17:42,870
et cetera, and the left side.

333
00:17:42,870 --> 00:17:46,980
So the Y-axis is proportion
of the Stan total,

334
00:17:46,980 --> 00:17:48,470
which it occurs.

335
00:17:48,470 --> 00:17:50,340
So you can see where sugar maple,

336
00:17:50,340 --> 00:17:53,520
so this is stands where it is 50%

337
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,270
or more of the live tree basal area

338
00:17:56,270 --> 00:17:57,997
certainly has more than half of the pole

339
00:17:57,997 --> 00:17:59,923
and sawtimber size trees.

340
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:04,230
And it is dominating the seedlings,

341
00:18:04,230 --> 00:18:08,100
the smallest size seedlings,
but not necessarily recruiting

342
00:18:08,100 --> 00:18:11,000
into large seedling
classes nor the sapling

343
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,260
as much as it is dominating
the smallest seedlings

344
00:18:14,260 --> 00:18:17,300
and the pole and sawtimber size.

345
00:18:17,300 --> 00:18:19,000
As far as downed dead wood,

346
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,280
there's not a lot of
necessarily legacy effects

347
00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:25,920
of standard development regarding

348
00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:27,920
the standing dead and downed dead.

349
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:29,850
So really you see this figure

350
00:18:29,850 --> 00:18:33,216
as being the relationship
here between the recruitment

351
00:18:33,216 --> 00:18:37,163
on the left side and the
legacy effects of this species.

352
00:18:37,163 --> 00:18:40,946
And in the kind of center of this figure,

353
00:18:40,946 --> 00:18:45,946
you have the traditional size
density kind of stalking,

354
00:18:46,780 --> 00:18:49,430
kind of a assessment
you're used to seeing.

355
00:18:49,430 --> 00:18:52,130
How many sampling pole,
sawtimber live trees

356
00:18:52,130 --> 00:18:54,340
do you have for the
species compared to others?

357
00:18:54,340 --> 00:18:56,580
We're just bringing in
the other information.

358
00:18:56,580 --> 00:18:58,618
So we can like play this

359
00:18:58,618 --> 00:19:02,340
looking at all basal area,

360
00:19:02,340 --> 00:19:03,480
levels of basal area

361
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:07,030
that sugar maple occupies across stands,

362
00:19:07,030 --> 00:19:09,920
across the entire Northern United States

363
00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:12,750
by playing it as a movie here

364
00:19:12,750 --> 00:19:14,546
where you have sugar maple basal area.

365
00:19:14,546 --> 00:19:17,810
You can see it changing from
zero to a hundred percent.

366
00:19:17,810 --> 00:19:20,955
And what happens as far as changing

367
00:19:20,955 --> 00:19:25,955
across the landscape in terms
of this individual species?

368
00:19:27,310 --> 00:19:29,520
So proportion of stand on total

369
00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:32,140
and this we can assess
for really any species

370
00:19:32,140 --> 00:19:34,650
across landscape to understand recruitment

371
00:19:34,650 --> 00:19:37,913
and understand legacy
effects and competition.

372
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:42,643
Let that play one more
second for you to watch.