Other factors beyond stand age and forest composition such as regional differences in topography and climate likely also interact

with silvicultural prescriptions ( Work et al., 2008). Regardless of the underlying mechanism, disproportionately lower abundances within shelterwood and multicohort stands will likely lengthen any potential recovery period of beetle assemblages. Any potential recovery will also depend on when second pass of harvesting takes place. At least initially, both shelterwood and multicohort approaches may result in relatively high albeit different levels of retention. With successive stand interventions aimed at harvesting seed trees, retention Inhibitor Library order levels within shelterwoods will necessarily decrease. For more intensive approaches such as clear-cutting there is evidence of lasting impact of the effects of harvesting whereby composition, species richness and the abundance of forest specialist species were affected EPZ-6438 supplier as long as ca. 30 years following harvest (Niemelä et al., 1993 and Koivula et al., 2002). While partial cut harvesting does not impact beetle assemblages to the extent of clear cutting (Work et al., 2010), recovery time

following clear cutting may serve as a worst-case bench mark by which to judge the value of shelterwood and multicohort harvesting. In shelterwood harvests, the removal of standing retention follows the successful establishment of regeneration which may occur 10–20 years following the initial harvest in boreal forests (Smith et al., 1997). In contrast, following the second pass in multicohort stands, young trees regenerating within machine corridors and taller stems left in partially cut strips adjacent to both the past and new machine corridors will be present. Given the relationship between reduced retention and increased impact on abundance and composition, the persistence of canopy cover in multicohort managed stands suggests that multicohort management may be preferable to shelterwood cutting for maintaining ground beetles over the long-term. Within shelterwood and multicohort stands, we were able to detect differences in ground beetle assemblages between

Buspirone HCl machine corridors and the intact and partially harvested vegetation strips, despite the limited number of traps used in each habitat type. Species commonly associated with uncut forests, including P. adstrictus, P. pensylvanicus, P. decentis and A. retractum were greater in machine corridors. This suggests that machine corridors may adequately emulate smaller-scale features such as canopy gaps that are present in uncut forest stands without promoting the abundance of common open-habitat species like Amara and Harpalus ( Koivula, 2002, Klimaszewski et al., 2005 and Brais et al., 2013). For shelterwoods, this stand-level heterogeneity will only be present until seed trees and retention is recovered during the subsequent harvest.