Determining critical thresholds of landscape disturbance in coniferous and mixed boreal forests in western Québec

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The forestry industry is one of the fundamental pillars of the Canadian economy, and is a strong link to our past development. However, one of the strengths of the modern industry is the wide adoption of forest certification, which ensures for the buyers that the forests are managed in a sustainable manner. In the past there was a strong focus on what was going on in an individual forest stand, but as management overall improves, there is an increasing focus on the landscape level. While the effect arrangement and amount of unharvested forest has been examined for several animal species, it has been little considered for most plant species as they are generally not considered as dispersal limited in the boreal forest. However, many bryophyte (moss and liverwort) species are potentially dispersal limited, particularly those with specific characterisitcs, for example infrequent reproduction. This project aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining the influence of landscape characteristics on bryophyte community composition, species dispersal and genetic diversity. With these results, we will be able to develop minimum threshold values of habitat quality, amount and organisation across a forest landscape. Via the participation of industry and governmental partners, these thresholds can be integrated into forest management, facilitating forest certification and Canadian forest products brand strength on the international markets.