The reference state (1.0) is a dense closed canopy forest dominated by white spruce with the occasional ponderosa pine, aspen, or paper birch The hardwood and ponderosa pine components will be more heavily present in younger stands and eventually be out competed by the spruce and become less prevalent as the stand ages.
The understory can be very diverse from one site to another but may include a twinflower dominated community on run in landforms or a grouse whortleberry dominated community on run off landforms. In run in landscape positions, the twinflower community consists of common juniper, Oregon grape, and spirea. In run off landscape positions, the grouse whortleberry community consists of rough-leaf ricegrass, rock clematis, false melic, creeping dogwood and bracken fern.
In addition to downed woody debris, often times more than 25% of the ground cover is mosses and lichens along with 15-35% downed woody debris.
Structural variation within this reference state is driven by type of disturbance and time between disturbances. High severity disturbance such as stand replacing fires results in an early seral hardwood community of aspen and paper birch with a small component of ponderosa pine and white spruce. Due to the shade intolerance of the hardwood species immature white spruce and ponderosa pine are able to dominate the community. Because spruce are more tolerant than pine and are capable of faster height growth during its early life, it eventually dominates with greater than 80%. This dynamic will take up to 80 years to play out. Due to a long fire return interval this system will eventually result in an even-aged forest of mostly white spruce. As these trees age and become decadent they become more susceptible to windthrow from severe weather, bark beetles and root diseases. These eventual disturbances kill individual trees or small patches (0-20) acres, which regenerate with additional white spruce. This process creates a gap dynamic and produces an uneven age structure. This system is able to persist until the next high severity disturbance occurs for up to 300 years.
The Timber managed state is largely the result of forest management activities. Fire suppression was common throughout recent history removing one of the primary ecological drivers of this system. The removal of fire from the system left many of the spruce stands decadent and declining in health. This created a need for timber management to be used to sustain or create regeneration within these spruce systems.
Active management of forest results in a managed state for this ecological site. The transition to this community from the reference community is a result of timber harvest designed to achieve forest management objectives. These treatments focus on maintaining spruce stands by cutting openings or individual trees in decadent spruce stand to facilitate spruce regeneration and create and uneven-aged forest structure.
Model keys
Briefcase
Add ecological sites and Major Land Resource Areas to your briefcase by clicking on the briefcase () icon wherever it occurs. Drag and drop items to reorder. Cookies are used to store briefcase items between browsing sessions. Because of this, the number of items that can be added to your briefcase is limited, and briefcase items added on one device and browser cannot be accessed from another device or browser. Users who do not wish to place cookies on their devices should not use the briefcase tool. Briefcase cookies serve no other purpose than described here and are deleted whenever browsing history is cleared.
The Ecosystem Dynamics Interpretive Tool is an information system framework developed by the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and New Mexico State University.
) icon wherever it occurs. Drag and drop items to reorder. Cookies are used to store briefcase items between browsing sessions. Because of this, the number of items that can be added to your briefcase is limited, and briefcase items added on one device and browser cannot be accessed from another device or browser. Users who do not wish to place cookies on their devices should not use the briefcase tool. Briefcase cookies serve no other purpose than described here and are deleted whenever browsing history is cleared.
