Improving management strategies linked to certification of sustainable forest practices for priority songbirds in West Virginia
Dates
Start Date
2021-01-01
End Date
2023-06-30
Summary
Many eastern deciduous forest songbirds continue to experience significant population declines, which are often linked to breeding habitat requirements. Managing breeding habitat for some declining focal species in the eastern deciduous forest will entail managing for canopy heterogeneity and variable forest age classes through canopy disturbance, which are critical factors for optimizing bird species biodiversity. The prevalence of mature forests has remained stable to increasing in recent decades, but young forest conditions are lacking. In the Appalachian region, active forest management on private lands (both institutional and family-owned), in addition to public lands, are instrumental for either reversing declines or ensuring [...]
Summary
Many eastern deciduous forest songbirds continue to experience significant population declines, which are often linked to breeding habitat requirements. Managing breeding habitat for some declining focal species in the eastern deciduous forest will entail managing for canopy heterogeneity and variable forest age classes through canopy disturbance, which are critical factors for optimizing bird species biodiversity. The prevalence of mature forests has remained stable to increasing in recent decades, but young forest conditions are lacking. In the Appalachian region, active forest management on private lands (both institutional and family-owned), in addition to public lands, are instrumental for either reversing declines or ensuring population persistence for many forest songbirds.
Species-specific management to improve conditions for multiple bird species, including Golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera; GWWA), Cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea; CERW), Wood thrush (Hylocichla mustellina; WOTH), and numerous associated species have been implemented in recent years on public and private lands. Although GWWA, CERW, and WOTH each require different habitat conditions for nesting, each also uses a variety of forest structure and age classes as the breeding season progresses from nesting to post-fledging. For example, GWWA will move into structurally complex older forest age classes to rear fledglings while WOTH will take their young out of mature stands into younger forest age classes. These interconnected patterns of utilization of diverse age classes and structure, exhibited by a variety of bird species, are likely indicative of the historic dynamic forest conditions of the Appalachian region. Therefore, forest management planning at the stand and landscape scale must consider the range of habitat needs for breeding forest birds, from nesting to post-fledging, to ensure the diversity of forest structure and age classes to meet known requirements. This perspective supports the concept of a “shifting mosaic” as a construct for management planning at large scales.
To develop management strategies at a landscape scale, it is important to engage landowners that provide opportunity for implementation at that scale. In West Virginia, Weyerhaeuser Inc. owned lands, which are certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Forest Management Standard and National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) standard, create a unique opportunity to understand the potential intersection between institutional land management strategies and objectives, with partner efforts to advance bird conservation at a large landscape scale. Landowners that are certified to the SFI Forest Management Standard are subject to requirements relative to landscape-scale outcomes, placing them in a position of responsibility and opportunity to capture advance contributions toward biodiversity at large scales. Beyond institutional landowners, family-owned forestlands remain critical to achieving desired habitat conditions at meaningful scale. Such ownerships are often interspersed with institutional ownerships, and even dominate in many significant geographies, particularly in the Eastern United States. Strategies intended to affect outcomes at the landscape scale must account for improving and monitoring habitat conditions (and species response) across multiple ownerships and ensure engagement strategies for each class of landowner.
This project will evaluate a suite of forest management practices to benefit multiple priority species in the context of institutional management. Additionally, the project will assess the efficacy of using autonomous recording units (ARUs) to monitor effects of management. Importantly, the project includes NRCS actions toward the engagement of family-owned lands in a priority landscape and monitoring of management effects on those lands in tandem with the Weyerhaeuser institutional lands. Consensus among conservation professionals is that forest management on private lands (large and small) is essential to reversing population declines through dynamic forest management.
Objectives:
To develop and test means and efficacy of institutional landowner engagement in both implementation and monitoring of practices to improve conditions for declining bird species, in concert with adjacent ownerships. The intent is to better understand multi-species approaches and practicalities of implementation with a focus on SFI certified forests and surrounding family forestlands to optimize outcomes at a landscape scale. Focal species will be GWWA, CERW, and WOTH, although the overall avian community (including game birds and night birds) will be monitored.
