Peck, J.E. 1998. Supplement to the Moss Harvest Monitoring Plan. Report to the Siuslaw National Forest, Corvallis, OR.
This report replaces the 1996 Moss Harvest Monitoring Plan, and the 1997 Supplement, for the Hebo District, Siuslaw National Forest by updating the monitoring plans, site descriptions, and experimental results for Stewardship Area 1 (SA1) and Stewardship Area 2 (SA2) and providing the monitoring plan and site description for Stewardship Area 3 (SA3). The notable harvest impacts and treatment effects in SA1 immediately following harvest in 1996, which one year later had largely evened out, are now indiscernible. 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 total cover, species richness, or the abundance of harvestable mats. In SA2, the significant reductions in cover and changes in species composition in the rules (100 lb/acre) plots that immediately followed harvest in 1997 have diminished. Moderate levels of commercial moss harvest therefore appear to have strong short-term impacts on cover and species richness that decrease with time. Impacts on species composition and epiphyte mat volume, however, are longer-lasting. Monitoring in SA3 includes the landscape-level approach begun in SA1 and continued in SA2, which will compare the baseline (1998) bryophyte communities (described herein) of SA3 to those present in 2003, after five years of moss harvest. This report includes an Appendix with the 1998 annual interim report on moss recovery on Acer circinatum stems harvested in 1994. Although it is too soon to make reliable regrowth predictions, moss cover on these stems has increased by approximately 6%/yr. Results from these studies indicate that although impacts on species richness and cover appear to be relatively short-lived, recovery in terms of biomass and bryophyte community composition may take many years to decades.