Teaching Complex Adaptive Systems Science in Natural Resource Management: Examples from Forestry

Abstract

the Lockheed Fire ignited the west slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains burning approximately 7,819 acres. Foresters and other land managers were left with challenging decisions on how to evaluate tree mortality. Big Creek Lumber Company, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly)'s Swanton Pacific Ranch (SPR), and other resource professionals familiar with this region teamed up to develop a method for evaluating damage and thereby mortality for redwood, California nutmeg, live oak, tanoak, California bay, Pacific madrone, big leaf maple, Douglas-fir, Monterey pine, and knobcone pine. Quantitative damage criteria were used to design three Mortality Assessment models (MA), divided into three diameter at breast height classes (1-8.9, 9-16.9, >17 inches), for all tree species. These models were compared against pre-fire data from 82, one-fifth acre fixed plots from SPR's Continuous Forest Inventory. Since the initial evaluation using the new MA in Fall 2009, each of the 2,877 trees were re-evaluated in Spring 2010 and Spring 2011 to determine if initial evaluations from the MA in 2009 were correct. To date, predictions to determine individual tree mortality using the Mortality Assessment models have been 89.3% correct.

The functional complex network approach to foster forest resilience to global changes

“…The variety of possible outcomes within envelope C allows forests and foresters to be "creative" in adapting to new altered conditions such as climate change. Note that the final envelope (dashed lines) covers a different spectrum of ecological characteristics than the initial conditions since future climatic conditions will be different (modified from Puettmann et al 2009)…”

“…In the second category, nature-based silvicultural approaches, the focus shifts towards incorporating natural processes into management or to using natural processes to guide management. This often focusses less on economic values and more on ecological and cultural values, although some elements of this approach such as natural regeneration or self-pruning of trees might have originally been motivated by cost-savings (Puettmann et al 2009;Duncker et al 2012;O'Hara 2016). A nature-based silviculture rests therefore on the assumption that, by emulating nature, management and harvesting can reduce the impact of disturbances on ecosystem functions and biodiversity and that natural processes can be employed to achieve silvicultural goals (Bauhus et al 2013;O'Hara 2016).…”

“…Viewing forests as complex adaptive systems is not a management approach per se and does not lend itself to simple rules or recipes reflected in stand prescriptions. Instead, Puettmann et al (2009) suggested it as an alternative to applying the "homogeneity equals efficiency" paradigm to forestry, and thus encouraged forestry to deviate from or move beyond the agricultural production model. As such, the emphasis on adaptation in complex systems theory can be viewed as an inspiration for our integrated approach described below.…”

“…Focus and limitations of past and current silvicultural and forest management approaches Until a few decades ago, the objective of forest management and silviculture has mainly focused on timber production (Puettmann et al 2009). Hand in hand with this objective was a major emphasis on increasing forestry efficiency by simplifying forest structures and standardizing forest practices (Puettmann et al 2009). Mechanization of forest operations has rapidly improved our ability to shape the fate of forests.…”

“…This view of the forest as a provision source of raw material for industrial timber products did not change significantly until the latter part of the twentieth century, when society started to acknowledge the other benefits forest ecosystems provide (Bengston 1994). This awareness was supported by scientific knowledge of the complex dynamic of forest ecosystems that has raised questions about the impacts of forestry practices on forest sustainability (Puettmann et al 2009). As a result, forest management objectives have evolved integrating new values, such as maintaining biodiversity and maximizing carbon sequestration and innovative forestry approaches have been proposed to accomplish this wider range of objectives (Bauhus et al 2017b).…”