Can't see the forest for the trees

This saying has long been used to describe a situation where the big picture is missed because the whole is more than just the sum of its parts. This is as apropos now as ever. Forests are more valuable than just the trees within them. It is their canopy that defines the forest and creates the conditions required by all of the other life that inhabit the forest, , and we have to consider how our use and management impacts the ecological trajectory of the forest community. Every action has costs and consequences, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to forest management. Let's explore a variety of management strategies and how they impact and influence the current and future states of forest communities and our perceptions of them.

Let's first define a forest.

120' in width, and 1 acre minumum area. Trees 15' tall and greater with 10% canopy cover

By these definitions, a savannah is a forest

Forests Time is a dimension that is included in these definitions. What was once a forest and if left to be, it would be a forest again even if it has been drastically altered, is still a forest.

In the interim, sun loving plants colonize the vacant niche space. Extensive edge habitat can also be created through opening forests to clearing

In only 30 years, the forest grows from its "meadow" stage into a full-fledged forest with 10% canopy

In the span of a human lifetime the forest will be ripe for harvest again. By the time that the goldenrods, the asters, the dogwood, and the rubus begin to naturally lose ground; the damp and shaded soil with it's covering of leaf litter becomes less suitable as time goes onthe trees have reached harvestable size, they can then be thinned for timber stand improvement, whereby resetting the minimum canopy requirements and opening the forest floor to sun again

Forests that are managed in this way do not mature. Their ecological succession is suspended. The plant community is comprised of sun-loving species. The wildlife prefers open habitat and edge space. They are young forests, at their oldest.

White tailed deer thrive matrix created along the edges where it explore both the forest and the meadow

Invasive species quickly and efficiently colonize the available niche space created. Without management, invasive species can outcompete and displace native vegetation, reducing biodiversity and can even cause local extirpation

To mitigate this, pesticides can be used to control undesired vegetation. Undesired vegetation is anything that interferes with the establishment of the next cohort of trees

Invasive species though, are invasive in part because they are tenacious and are more are not only more tolerant of disturbance but are well equipped to take advantage of and thrive when vegetation is killed amd resources become available

Mechanical control methods can be employed as an alternative to or ahead of pesticide use. Without the addition of pesticides, the interfering vegetation will regrow

Targeting or selective removal is time consuming. Forestry equipment can expedite the thinning and timber stand improvement process

Forestry equipment can also expedite the application process of pesticides to control interfering vegetation. Interfering vegetation can be native species that restrict the germination and establishment of trees.

Native interfering understory vegetation such as NY fern and hay scented fern are the result of intensive silvicultural practices that approach the management of a forest with the same crop-focused intensity used in modern agriculture, a consequence of which is the generation of preferential habitat and conditions for white tail deer

Deer and invasive species also significantly impact the establishment of the next cohort of canopy trees. This all alters the ecological trajectory of the forest, and the natural succession to a mature forest community that supports understory vegetation is impeded

Taxonomically for ecological communities, forests managed for young successional cycles are as distantly related to mature mesic mixed hardwood communities once so prevalent in the northeast, as these mesic forests are to the taiga. They do not share disturbance regimes and although there are generalist species on both sides of the delineated boundary, they do not share characteristic species.

Natural canopy gaps in mature forests are not dozens of acres in size, they are dozens of square feet

The succession time is significantly reduced because the canopy can close in years rather than in decades, and the close and contiguous proximity to understory propagules

Mature, late successional forests is what we inherently think of as a forest. Large trees, closed canopies, and a sparse but diverse understory

A forest defined ecologically is not a forest until the shade from the canopy is enough to allow shade dependent, understory vegetation. It is the intact canopy cover and the understory vegetation that characterize a forest as an ecological community, not as an agricultural commodity with some wildlife benefits

C. FORESTED UPLANDS

This subsystem includes upland communities with more than 60% canopy cover of trees (greater than 5 m tall); these communities occur on substrates with less than 50% rock outcrop or shallow soil over bedrock.

The distinction is in the frequency of disturbance through management, wherein silviculture forests are allowed to enter early maturity before resetting the clock, thereby maintaining the forest as a young forest community v allowing the forest to mature and following practices that mimic natural gap formation disturbance through selective harvest to maintain the cycle in the succession through the mature forest to climax forest phase

The forest floor gently rolls with pits and mounds, wet and mucky in the hammocks, and soft and spongy on the tussocks. From the leaf litter arises spring ephemerals, orchids, mosses, and lycopodia