Peck,
J.E. 1997d. Supplement to the Moss Harvest Monitoring Plan.
Report to the Siuslaw National Forest, Corvallis, OR.
This
report supplements the 1996 Moss Harvest Monitoring Plan for the Hebo District,
Siuslaw National Forest by describing the year two results of a moss harvest
impacts study in Stewardship Area 1
(SA1) and the monitoring protocol and year one results for Special Forest
Products Stewardship Area 2 (SA2). Although
there were notable harvest impacts and treatment effects in SA1 immediately
following harvest in 1996, one year later the treatment effects have largely
evened out. While species
composition continues to differ among treatments, no differences remain among
control, rules (30 lb/acre removal), and no rules (100 lb/acre removal) plots
for cover, species richness, or the abundance of harvestable mats.
Monitoring in SA2 includes the landscape-level approach begun in SA1,
which will compare the baseline (1997) bryophyte communities (described herein)
of SA2 to those present in 2002, after five years of moss harvest.
SA2 also includes an evaluation of moss harvest impacts in upland conifer
and hardwood dominated forests, with twenty-four long-term monitoring plots
established and pre-harvest baseline data on epiphyte composition and abundance
recorded in 1997. Plots were
harvested according to two treatments (control and 100 lbs/acre removal) and
then remeasured immediately following harvest.
The immediate harvest impact on harvestable moss diversity was
insignificant, but the reductions in abundance and the changes in relative
species composition were significant and similar to the No Rules treatment of
SA1. This report includes changes
to the Monitoring Plan for SA1, and an Appendix with the 1997 annual interim
report on moss recovery on Acer circinatum
stems harvested in 1994.