Twenty-year monitoring of silvicultural treatments and road reclamation for caribou conservation in the boreal mixedwoods

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This CRD grant proposal is presented in association with the NSERC industrial chair in Silviculture and wood production evaluated on 13 November 2018. This proposal consists of two sub-projects, i.e. mid-term monitoring of silvicultural treatments and forest road reclamation for woodland caribou conservation.Mid-term monitoring of silvicultural treatments: In natural disturbance-based management (NDBM), a range of silvicultural approaches are used to replicate forest structure and composition that is observed after natural disturbances. Within NDBM, partial harvesting (PH) is used to maintain uneven forest structure and biological legacies, such as deadwood, necessary to maintain forest biodiversity. We propose a series of studies that will evaluate the medium-term (i.e. 20 years) effects of PH on understory plant communities, ground-dwelling arthropod communities, deadwood dynamics, and the structure and productivity of boreal mixedwood stands. We will determine 1) how quickly biotic communities (plants and arthropods) recover following PH and 2) whether stand productivity increases after PH thus compensating for harvested trees. Road reclamation: This sub-project will take advantage of the fact that Agnico-Eagle mines is planning to established a new open-pit mine for gold and copper mineral extraction near Val-d'Or. South of the mining project is located the woodland caribou population of Val-d'Or, designated as endangered by the government of Canada. In this region, to facilitate resource extraction, road building caused disturbances to the caribou habitat. Habitat loss has intensified the precariousness of this caribou population making it imperative to restore its habitat. Roads have mainly affected this population by increasing predation rates. The lack of literature on the effectiveness of road closure on habitat restoration, however, makes it difficult to propose restoration plans. This sub-project will be conducted with the objective of restoring part of the caribou habitat by reclamation of forest roads. More specifically, we will evaluate the effectiveness of road reclamation techniques to reduce the use of forestry roads by caribou predators (i.e. black bears and grey wolfs).