Long-term responses of tree growth and stand structure to innovative silvicultural treatments

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Within the Forestry Sector in Canada and other countries with temperate zone forests, there is much interest in how innovative silvicultural practices could be adapted to maintain, and even enhance, biodiversity in managed forest landscapes. This quest is critical to future productivity (timber supply) and ecological features (biodiversity) of second-growth forests, particularly in an era of uncertainty with respect to climate change. In fact, the forest industry is literally crying out: "Please tell us what we can do, with conventional and innovative practices, to help maintain a future timber supply while maintaining biodiversity and sustainability in these managed forests". There is much rhetoric on what should be done, but a dearth of actual real-world (operational-scale) experiments in innovative silvicultural strategies have been established. A crucial question is: Can we maintain components of biodiversity while growing new forests as quickly as possible? A secondary question is: How do we measure the relative effectiveness of new strategies that enhance timber growth, but maintain habitat for biodiversity?