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Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
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Established on July 1, 1995, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is charged with maintaining and preserving the 120 state parks; managing the 2.2 million acres of state forest land; providing information on the state's ecological and geologic resources; and establishing community conservation partnerships with grants and technical assistance to benefit rivers, trails, greenways, local parks and recreation, regional heritage parks, open space and natural areas.
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Pennsylvania Game Commission
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The Commission is responsible for managing all of Pennsylvania's wild birds and mammals and enforcing the Game and Wildlife Code, Fish and Boat Code, Forestry Laws and Pennsylvania's Crimes Code. Since its formation, the Commission has purchased lands for inclusion in its State Game Lands system, which currently contains about 300 separate tracts comprising a total of more than 1.4 million acres, and dedicates an extraordinary amount of manpower to the never-ending effort of spreading the word and educating Pennsylvanians about wildlife.
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Peters, Chris
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Poster Presentation: Seeing Past the Green: Quantifying the Characteristics of High-graded Forests
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Download the Poster Presentation for "Seeing Past the Green: Quantifying the Characteristics of HIgh-Graded Forests
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Roth, Amber
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Seeing past the green: Structure, composition, and biomass differences in high graded and silviculture-managed forests of similar stand density
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Forests of the eastern United States (US) mostly comprise a mix of stands managed following silvicultural
principles and stands managed with exploitative timber harvesting practices. These stands can have similar stand
densities (e.g., basal area per hectare) but vary vastly in structure, composition, and biomass and carbon storage.
High grading, a prevalent exploitative timber harvesting practice in the eastern US, is of particular concern
because it can negatively affect future forest health and productivity. This study quantifies differences in forest
structure, composition, and biomass and carbon storage between high graded stands and stands that received a
seed/establishment cut of a uniform shelterwood regeneration sequence treatment, which is a comparable and
well-established silvicultural method used to regenerate mixed-oak forests. It focuses on mixed-oak forests
(mixed-Quercus), where the effects of high grading have been understudied, and uses a sample with broader
spatial coverage than previous studies. The sample comprised nine stands that were known to have been high
graded 8–15 years ago and nine stands that received the seed/establishment cut of a uniform shelterwood
regeneration sequence. Stand were systematically sampled using fixed-area plots. Field measurements were
collected and used to calculate metrics describing forest structure and function. The structure of high graded
stands was characterized by a higher proportion of trees with poor health and/or form compared to shelterwood
stands, with 18.3 % less acceptable growing stock and trees with lower crown compaction. Diameter distributions
of high graded stands were characterized by numerous small trees and few large-diameter trees. Spatial
variability of overstory trees was contingent on the tree size range evaluated, with a larger variability of
sawtimber-sized trees (trees ≥ 29.2 cm in diameter at breast height) in high graded stands. High graded stands
also had 2.2 times fewer oak trees (Quercus spp.) in the overstory canopy, 17,897 fewer seedlings per hectare
(ha), and 45 Mg/ha less biomass than shelterwood stands. These results indicate that high grading generally
degrades mixed-oak forests and impairs their long-term capacity to supply vital ecosystem services such as
habitat for specific wildlife species, carbon storage, and high-quality wood products.
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The Habitat Matrix - Stepping Down Bird Management From Landscape to Stand
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Part 5 of a 12-part monthly lecture series, Forests for the Birds: Conserving America’s Forest Birds. July 20, 2021.
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The Literature Gateway
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A Systematic Map of Bird-Vegetation Relationships in Eastern and Boreal Forests
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Thinning Forests to Save the Birds
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An interesting and informative 8-minute video that explains how tree harvests are critical to saving a host of bird species that rely on young forest habitat for part of their annual life cycle.
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is a bureau within the Department of the Interior. Our mission is to work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 150 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System of more than 551 National Wildlife Refuges and thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. Under the Fisheries program we also operate 70 National Fish Hatcheries, 65 fishery resource offices and 86 ecological services field stations.
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