Responses of terrestrial animals to forest characteristics and climate reveals ecological indicators for sustaining wildlife in managed forests

Monitoring Mammal Community Shifts Across Silvicultural Treatments Utilizing Camera Traps and the Development of Invertebrate- Derived Dna in Hardwood Forests of North America

“…For this analysis, I used a tweedie family distribution in the glmmTMB R package (Brooks et al, 2017). I used the tweedie family of error distributions to account for a meanvariance relationship, allowing for the over dispersion and zero padding seen in the data (Dunn and Smyth, 2005;Brown et al, 2020). I assessed model fit by plotting the residuals to look at the spread.…”

“…Canopy and understory treatments influence not only stand regeneration but mammalian community compositions as well by altering habitats for mammals (Brown et al, 2020;Nolet et al, 2017). Understanding movement of mammals throughout the Great Lakes region is important because changes in mammalian communities have the capability to influence tree regeneration, extinction rates, and overall mammalian community shifts (Rooney and Waller, 2002;Lavoie et al, 2019).…”

“…Specifically, some small mammals have been shown to benefit from microhabitat disturbances. For example, it has been shown that small mammal populations in Ontario, Canada, another region with high disturbance events, are not influenced by the disturbances caused by timber harvesting (Brown et al, 2020). However, some small mammal species, such as deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), have been shown to increase in population after a disturbance event .…”

Unravelling the cavity‐nesting network at large spatial scales: The biogeographic role of woodpeckers as ecosystem engineers

“…The amount and variability of microhabitat resources shape species abundance and diversity, with effects that spread though ecological networks (Brown et al., 2020; Sobral et al., 2017; Tylianakis et al., 2008). A typically limiting resource in forests ecosystems are the tree cavities animals use for reproduction or refuge (Maziarz et al., 2017; van der Hoek et al., 2017), whose quantity affects individual fitness, population size, and intraspecific competition (Maziarz et al., 2016; Wiebe, 2011).…”

Northeastern American Forests: Natural Disturbances, Climate Change Impact, and the Utilization of Increasingly Damaged Forest Trees for Biofuel Production

“…Forests are an important component of the environment and ecosystem services and are sources of raw materials, woody biomass, etc. Forests play a critical role in providing food resources and habitats for wildlife [1]; maintaining biodiversity; providing refuge for fauna and flora [2]; protecting land and water resources [3]; minimizing or eliminating flooding [4], soil erosion, and landslides [5]; regulating/moderating air and soil temperatures [6]; and mitigating climate change by acting as a carbon sink [7] through several processes, including photosynthesis; removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; reducing the impacts of extreme heat and solar radiation on flora and fauna by intercepting solar radiation at the forest canopy, sheltering the understory vegetation and wildlife habitat; serving as a buffer for improving water quality and reducing the run-off of chemicals that cause environmental degradation; providing biomass for renewable energy production; providing wood materials for heat, construction, and many other purposes; and providing many other important environmental services [8].…”