Multiaged Silviculture: Managing for Complex Forest Stand Structures

by Kevin O'Hara

Overview

This book presents the latest scientific and management information on multiaged silviculture, an emerging strategy for managing forestry systems worldwide. Over recent decades, forest science and management have tended to emphasize plantation silviculture. Whilst this clearly meets our wood production needs, many of the world's forests need to be managed far less intensively and more flexibly in order to maintain their natural ecosystem functions together with the values inherent in those processes. Developing multiaged management strategies for these complex forest ecosystems represents a global challenge to successfully integrate available science with sustainable management practices. Multiaged Silviculture covers the ecology and dynamics of multiaged stands, the management operations associated with regeneration, tending, and stocking control, and the implications of this strategy on production, genetic diversity, and stand health. It is primarily aimed at graduate level students and researchers in the fields of forestry and silviculture, but will also be of relevance and use to all professional foresters and silviculturists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191007576
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	08/28/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Kevin O'Hara is Professor of Silviculture at the University of California - Berkeley where he teaches field and classroom courses in forestry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and taught for 8 years at the University of Montana before joining the University of California faculty. He is the author of over 120 scientific papers and served on the editorial boards or as associate editor of the European Journal of Forest Research, Forestry, and the Journal of Forestry. His research focuses on a variety of aspects of forest stand dynamics and their application to silviculture. However, the bulk of his research focuses on multiaged stand dynamics and silviculture. He has published over 40 papers on the topic of multiaged silviculture and has served as the leader of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) Uneven-aged Silviculture Research Group (IUFRO 1.05).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Multiaged Silviculture
2. History of Multiaged Silviculture
3. Disturbance Dynamics of Multiaged Stands
4. Dynamics of Multiaged Stands
5. Dynamics of Forest Gap and Group Openings
6. Multiaged Management Systems
7. Multiaged Stocking Control
8. Regenerating Multiaged Stands
9. Tending Multiaged Stands
10. Transformations to Multiaged Stand Structures
11. Managing Multiaged Stands for Diverse Objectives
12. Growth Projection in Multiaged Stands
13. Volume and Economic Production of Multiaged Stands
14. Genetics and Multiaged Silviculture
15. Multiaged Structures and Stand Health
16. Social Justifications for Multiaged Silviculture

Editorial Reviews

"O'Hara provides a well-written synthesis of the social considerations connected to this type of forest management. Numerous photographs, diagrams, tables, and graphs; comprehensive reference list. Recommended." —Choice

"Multiaged Silviculture is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of all natural resource managers working in forests. ... Overall, O'Hara has done a wonderful job synthesizing the literature on the subject through to the present, and provides a look forward to the future of forest management and the role of multiaged silviculture." —Journal of Forestry

"Many of O'Hara's previous scholarly writings reflected his skill as a writer with an ability to render complicated subjects into neatly packaged forms of decision-support for forestry students and professionals. That acumen is also presented here: the text is well written, well organized, and generally accessible. ... Graduate students and researchers are the target audience for this book, but it can be equally appreciated and enjoyed by curious forestry professionals and undergraduate students. For them, it is a desk reference that belongs alongside familiar classics." —Ecology

"[A]n excellent treatment of "complex" silviculture... It is a must read for every forester especially where these issues are important driving mandates. And I would encourage every forester to have a copy available for reference at the very least." —Mark S. Ashton, The Quarterly Review of Biology

From the Publisher