Predicting Advance Regeneration Density in Lodge pole Pine Stands in the Northern Interior of

British Columbia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this chance for thanking my research facilitator, friends & family for support they provided & their belief in me as well as guidance they provided without which I would have never been able to do this research.



DECLARATION

I, (Your name), would like to declare that all contents included in this thesis/dissertation stand for my individual work without any aid, & this thesis/dissertation has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level previously. It is also representing my very own views & not essentially which are associated with university.

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ABSTRACT

The scale of the current mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak is such that many pine beetle-infested stands in the Central and Northern Interior of B.C. are being left untreated and unsalvaged. Unsalvaged stands will not undergo silvicultural treatment, which raises questions about their ability to regenerate, their future growth and yield, and the implications of these uncertainties to future timber supply. As forest inventories do not document understory conditions, no system currently exists to predict which stands will have adequate stocking of advance regeneration suitable for release upon canopy death, nor which stands are so dominated by brush that long regeneration delays can be expected. The research described here takes a ground-truthed, landscape-level approach to predicting, mapping, and prioritizing stands according to their need for salvage or rehabilitation. Data on the extent of advance regeneration will also contribute to improved growth and yield prediction of irregular stands, and to projections of mid-term timber supply.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW1

Distinction between Tree Response and Stand Response1

Natural regeneration by seed3

Seedling Origin, Size and Vigor5

Clipping7

Shade7

Basis for Developing Habitat Suitability7

Species Distribution Models9

Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB)10

Relationship between Tree Diameter at Breast Height and Mortality11

Advance Regeneration15

Underplanting15

Importance of Regeneration16

Disturbance ecology of insect outbreaks19

REFERENCES22

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Distinction between Tree Response and Stand Response

As the tree response is the growth of individual trees, their growth in the forests and the woods is mainly dependent on the achievement of resources that are water, light and nutrients. The attainment of resources is also largely associated with the efficiency with which the resources can be used. The effective usage of the resources includes timely separation to the woody tissues and photosynthesis. The efficiency of the tree response changes with the passage of time. It can be considered as the efficiency of tree response between trees in one time that usually result from the changes in the photosynthesis rates and shift in the comparative separation to wood (Hix, 1994).

On the other hand, the stand response is the ability to recover with adequate stocking. The stand response is the part of the new management that is being implemented by many of the forest management. The people are more inclined towards this stand response and the ability to recover with adequate stocking in order to observe the ponderosa pine forests of large trees that has yellow colored bark that is present at ...