Research toward the management of ruffed grouse in conifer forest

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Over the long term, this research will enable managers to purposefully enhance the use of forest by ruffed grouse in a generally conifer forest region.  Ruffed grouse have been studied much in the deciduous forests of the United States but are also a popular species even in the northern conifer forests across Canada where they are widely distributed yet at relatively low densities. Contemporary forest management is putting at risk the immature, disturbance-dependent community types and the animal species dependent upon them, including ruffed grouse.  Can we purposefully use tree harvest and silviculture techniques to regenerate intolerant deciduous and mixed wood stands usable by ruffed grouse, as part of long-term forest management planning generally geared toward conifer species? In the first phase of this long-term study with J.D. Irving, Limited, in central New Brunswick, we will search for grouse in 4 types of forest patches: those patches with the structural characteristics of sites used by ruffed grouse elsewhere in deciduous forests; young regenerating patches of intolerant deciduous species <12 years old, earlier cut from conifer and mixed wood forest; lowland zones along streams, and young (<30 years) conifer plantations. Sites used by grouse will be measured according to structural characteristics within the stand (their content) and in the stands surrounding the stands used (their context), and the edge and spatial pattern of stands used. These data will then be used for modeling purposes to teach us what we should measure further about grouse use in second round of surveys, and to help us design experimental patch cuts that will be monitored over the long term.  By the end of this grant period we will begin to design a management protocol for enhancing ruffed grouse use of forest patches that can be implemented into a long term conifer and mixed wood management strategy. Because forest management by industry increasingly employs decisions about wood supply over a large spatial scale, the recommendations for interventions for ruffed grouse will need to be put at similar large scales of extent.