Influence of adaptive management regimes on wood decomposition in northern hardwood forests

Deadwood decomposition is a critical ecosystem process that will be affected by shifting climate and disturbance regimes, as well as by adaptive management strategies designed to address their impacts. Most studies investigating deadwood decomposition in response to forest harvesting have focused on contrasts between highly disturbed and undisturbed areas, leaving key gaps in understanding how decomposition varies across a gradient of disturbance severity within forests that experience multiple forms of adaptive management. The objective of this study was to quantify the impacts of increasing harvest severity across a gradient of adaptive management strategies on wood decomposition rate and nutrient composition. Over four years, wood stake mass loss was not affected by the harvested treatments compared with the unharvested controls, but generally decreased with increasing disturbance severity. Furthermore, wood stake carbon (C) concentration was affected by harvesting, with generally higher concentrations in harvested than in unharvested areas. However, there were no differences in wood (N) nitrogen concentrations or C:N ratios across treatments, but wood stake N did increase over time. Although wood mass loss decreased with harvest severity, the results of this study indicate that deadwood retention within harvested areas can maintain forest carbon storage in deadwood pools, particularly in the short term.