Ecosystem Decoding

I have heard people say that historical information about forestry or logging operations, is historic, never coming back and belongs in a book on the shelf and has no bearing or relevance to the forests or forestry of today!!

Ecosystem Decoding is just using historical data, right? This is all covered in Historical Ecology and Historical Geography, right?

That is what some people think.

Ecosystem Decoding is way more than that and starts with Six Knowledge Streams.

Ecosystem Decoding is envisioned as encompassing information and data from the Four Knowledge Streams:

1. 14,000 years of First Nations Traditional Ecological Knowledge
2. Old Growth Forest Ecosystems (What I call Clean Code or Original Code or Baseline Code)
3. Western Ecological Science
4. How have we changed Forested Landscapes over the Past 180 Years under Colonial Forest and Fire Management?

But more than that, Ecosystem Decoding is and uses several levels and locations of data:

• Field Observations (Capturing Unrecorded Data such as Historic Post Harvesting Fires from Springboard Stumps with Fire Evidence)
• Field Measurements:  Vegetation Species Composition, Structures, & Functions, Biological Legacies, Old Growth Characteristics, Ecological Processes, & Old Growthedness
• Field Observations & Measurements of Insects, Disease, & Decay on Trees and Logs
• Field Observations & Measurements of Tree & Plant Stress & Diebacks, Droughts, Windstorms, Snow Press, Root Rot Centers, & Individual Tree Deaths
• Field Observations & Measurements of Climate Change and Global Warming Impacts (Droughts, Soil Moisture, Tree & Vegetation Stress), Unusual and Uncharacteristic Growth Patterns, Adaptations, & Changes at Stand & Landscape Scales
• Office Information:  Recent Records of Field Data (Silviculture Surveys, Timber Cruise), Harvesting, Silviculture Treatments, & Fires
• Office Information:  Historic Records of Forestry, Logging, Fires, Salvage Logging, Tree Establishment, and Tree Growth
• Create a Continuum or Chronosequence of Data from Old Growth Ecosystems to Present Day
• Determine How Much The Current Ecosystem Before Us Has Moved Away from Historic Successional Pathways
• Determine What Successional Pathways the Ecosystem We See Before Us Is On

Composition, Structure, & Function

One of the overarching concepts and which guides measurements of forests and other ecosystems is by looking at the Composition, Structure, & Function of the ecosystem we see in front of us.

Not only must we understand the Composition, Structure, & Function of an ecosystem, we must also understand the connections, linkages, dependencies between each of the three features of this concept.

Composition

As a starting point we must understand the Composition of an ecosystem.  This Composition could consist of the plants and animals of a forest, watershed, hillside, or landscape. Or equally as important, Composition could also refer to the seen and unseen ecological processes at work in a given ecosystem.

Composition could also include the a list of disturbance types to have impacted an area over the decades and centuries.

Or Composition could describe the dominant Forest Type on a Landscape such as Old Growth Forests or Second Growth Forests.

Composition could also describe the types of vegetation on the ground in the Herb Layer, or in the Shrub Layer, and the Tree Layer.  For example, we could describe the composition of a Forest as mixed with equal amounts of Conifer and Deciduous Trees, and more specifically 25% Were Douglas-fir and 25% were Western Red Cedar, with 25% Big Leaf Maple and 25% Red Alder.

Composition could also describe the amounts and types of forests on a landscape:  90% Second Growth with 10% Old Growth with more detailed descriptions in a discussion of the The Matrix or Matrix Lands (See below).

Structure

An important part of the Composition, Structure, & Function concept is Structure.

All ecosystems are composed of vegetation in various sizes, ages, locations, stages of growth, decay, or death.

The vegetation types have various shapes, stem forms, and growth patterns.

The plants themselves have a specific structure or stem form that is unique to each vegetation species.

A group of vegetation structures can then form forest stands, riparian forests, hillside, and landscape locations.

When it comes to trees, these are the hard to miss, what I call structural elements of a forest stand or patch.

Trees as structural elements are often Large Old Trees, Trees of various sizes, heights, position in the forest canopy, and diameters, Dead Standing Trees or Snags of Various Sizes, Heights, and diameters, Stumps of various sizes to historic Old Growth to Small Second Growth, and Downed Trees or Logs.

These are the Structural Elements that Forest Ecology and Forestry are focused on, use the same language to describe them, but where they are such divergent views and understandings of their importance ecologically let alone economically.

In Forestry and Restoration, these Forest Structural Elements can be maintained, retained, or created so that they have a presence going forward and can act as Biological Legacies.

Function

The Ecological Functions of an ecosystem especially forested ecosystems are many and varied and depend on the Composition and Structure of the ecosystem.

In forested ecosystems, the Composition and Structures are integral parts of Ecosystem Functions and Ecological Processes.

For example, Large Dead Standing Trees or Snags are important and function as places to find food for birds like woodpeckers which chip away at the decaying bark and wood to find insects to eat.

As well, these same snags also provide habitat for woodpeckers if the correct species, the right amount of growth and size, and the right amount of decay is present to create a habitat possibility for a woodpecker.

But a tree has to be the correct height and diameter from the ground up, so that at the woodpeckers preferred height, the snag is of a sufficient diameter to be able to accommodate a nest to be excavated with enough solid wood to support the top of the tree above the next hole.

Tree growth and decay could take decades or even centuries to create the optimal woodpecker tree.

If trees are cut in commercial forestry operations before they reach this optimal age, height, diameter, and decay, then woodpeckers are likely to have little or no habitat, let alone developing habitat with new trees and then snags to provide habitat as older and more decayed snags fall to the ground.

Lifeboating

Lifeboating is the intentional maintenance or retention of the Biological Legacies that provide a patch or oasis of the former ecosystem that is forwarded to the future.

Natural Disturbances without intervention by humans, forward Biological Legacies to the future thus allowing a younger and ecologically recovering ecosystem to act like an more complex, older, and ecologically more advanced ecosystem sooner than later.

These remnant patches are literally like Lifeboats that safeguard the existence of life in the form of plants, structural elements, ecological processes, habitat, and sometimes animals that have survived and disturbance such as Wildfire.

Lifeboating allows these characteristics and features to be sent in their current form, and to become an ecological backbone and refugia from which the various plants and animals can spread back out into the ecosystem and aid in its Post Disturbance Recovery.

The Matrix or Matrix Lands

The matrix is the dominant forest type in a given area.

For example, 100 years ago, Old Growth was the dominant forest type and covered most of the landscape.

Today, Second Growth Forests that are 0 – 160 years old dominate many BC landscapes, while Old Growth Forests are now just scattered remnants of the spatial extent they used to cover just 100 years ago.

One hundred years ago, Old Growth Forests formed the Matrix while today Second Growth Forests form the Matrix.

When looking at restoring forested ecosystems we look at the Composition, Structure, and Function and the type and amount of the Matrix, to help determine the goals and objectives of our Restoration efforts.

We look at the all of these factors and our Ecosystem Decoding to determine what is missing in a given landscape.

We also look at historic Successional pathways and with our Ecosystem Decoding to see if our current landscape is:

• Following the historic successional pathway
• On a new or different successional pathway based on the types, frequencies, and intensities of historic disturbances
• If the historic or new successional pathways will provide Ecosystem Resilience in the face of Climate Change

The above paragraphs, summarizes fairly briefly my development, progression, and journey towards the development of Ecosystem Decoding