Craig Loehle

Achieving conservation goals in managed forests of the Southeastern Coastal Plain.

Managed forests are a primary land use within the Coastal Plain of the southern United States. These forests are generally managed under standards, guidelines, or regulations to conserve ecosystem functions and services. Economic value of commercial forests provides incentives for landowners to maintain forests rather than convert them to other uses that have substantially reduced environmental benefits. In this review, we describe the historical context of commercial forest management in the southern United States Coastal Plain, describe how working forests are managed today, and examine relationships between commercial forest management and maintenance of functional aquatic and wetland systems and conservation of biological diversity. Significant challenges for the region include increasing human population and urbanization and concomitant changes in forest area and structure, invasive species, and increased interest in forest biomass as an energy feedstock. Research needs include better information about management of rare species and communities and quantification of relationships between ecosystem attributes and forest management, including biomass production and harvest. Incentives and better information may help commercial forest managers in the Coastal Plain more efficiently contribute to landscape-scale conservation goals.

Factors Influencing the Distribution of Northern Spotted Owls in the Eastern Cascades, Washington

Abstract The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) population is declining throughout its range in the United States and adjacent Canada and is facing increasing pressure from the invading Barred Owl (Strix varia). In this study, we characterize Spotted Owl habitat associations and develop 2 new habitat selection models for the eastern Washington Cascade Range. Topographic and habitat data were compiled at 2 scales (0.25 and 1.0 mi) around 224 Spotted Owl activity centers, or sites, and at 160 random locations in the same geographic region, and used to develop models for predicting owl distributions. Univariate analysis found that owl sites occurred below 5000-ft elevation and were more likely to occur as area in the >71% crown-cover class increased. Owl sites were found to be more likely to occur closer to streams and to be rare in the Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) vegetation type. The 9–25″ tree size-class was a significant predictor of the distribution of owl sites. Habitat models were constructed that were moderately successful at predicting owl-site distribution. Models from the largest scale tested (1.0-mi radius) were the most predictive, at 80% accuracy. Top-ranked models included overstory canopy cover, tree size, elevation, precipitation, distance to stream, and tree species as predictors. The resulting models can be used to help identify likely sites for surveys and to inform conservation and landscape management activities associated with forest-health restoration.