Characteristics of coarse woody debris in southwestern Nova Scotia forests

Coarse woody debris (CWD) was characterized in eleven coniferous stands in southwestern Nova Scotia. The stands were dominated by red spruce (Picea rubens), white pine (Pinus strobus), and eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). They ranged in age from 55 to 190 years old, and were classified as young (40 to 80 yr), mature (80 to 120 yr), and old-growth (120+ yr) forest. Each age class included two unharvested and two partially-harvested stands, except for the mature class in which only one harvested stand was found. Harvest treatment consisted of commercial thinning in the young stands, uniform selection harvest in the mature stand, and selection and/or shelterwood harvest in the old-growth stands in the past three to six years. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of stand age (using a chronosequence approach) and harvest treatment on the quantity and quality of CWD. Subsidiary objectives were to determine the accuracy of the line-intersect method for estimating the volume of downed CWD, and compare the difference in volume between using 7.0 and 9.0 cm as the minimum diameter to define CWD. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...