Following the appointment of the new Cabinet, the Forest Sector now reports to the ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts, while the Wildlife and Parks Sectors report to the ministère de l'Environnement, de la Lutte aux changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs. Adjustments will be made to the website over time.
Biodemographic parameters of an anadromous Arctic charr population during the upstream migration in the Tasiallujuak River, Deception Bay, Salluit, Nunavik, Québec, Canada, were studied to serve as a benchmark before any potential anthropogenic development in the area. This is the last of a series of four studies about iqaluppik.
Published in The Forestry Chronicle 99(2). https://doi.org/10.5558/tfc2023-016
Production goals for certain stands previously used mainly to produce sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) lumber are being revised due to the growing demand for products made from maple sap. This paper therefore estimates the impacts that maple sap production may have for maple lumber production. We began by developing a model able to predict sugar maple lumber losses due to tapping for sap collection. We then used the model to simulate two management scenarios: one for timber production alone, and one for production of both lumber and maple sap in the same stand. The results suggest that the net harvested volume of lumber declines by roughly 40% in the co-production scenario, compared to the timber production scenario.
Published in The Forestry Chronicle 99(2). https://doi.org/10.5558/tfc2023-019
Performing a complete silvicultural diagnosis before a silvicultural treatment generally requires assessing the state of regeneration with the help of an inventory by sampling, particularly for stands dominated by sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) or yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britt.), in which partial cuts are recommended. This inventory may be then compared to the standard or used in a growth model for saplings (trees for which diameter at 1.3 m above the ground (DBH) varies from 1.1 cm to 9.0 cm). Some of these tools are based on sapling density, while others are based on the stocking of the saplings or on the stocking of total regeneration (combining saplings and seedlings with a DBH ≤ 1.0 cm). We assessed the number of plots required to estimate the density and the stocking of saplings with a given margin of error in 28 stands. The results show that more plots are required than usual in practice to inventory sapling density. The stocking is much easier to estimate precisely.
Published in Forest Ecology and Management 544(september 2023): 121127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121127
The future climate of northern temperate forests is projected to be drier and warmer by the end of this century. As a result, more drought-induced forest dieback events are anticipated in northeastern North America, and assessing the vulnerability of dominant tree species to drought is critical for understanding the future composition of these forests. In a greenhouse experiment, we exposed two-year-old seedlings of Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P. and Pinus strobus L. to three future climate treatments for southern Quebec, Canada, and evaluated their mortality, growth, and foliage water status responses to soil water availability and atmospheric drought. Using a unique approach, climate treatments emulated droughts of different frequencies, durations, and intensities. Treatments closely simulated one growing season, with changes in air temperature and relative humidity every six hours and daily adjustment in the amount of water delivered to the seedlings. The three species experienced high mortality (75%) in all water-limited treatments compared to a control treatment that provided non-limiting soil moisture (0% mortality). The biomass of the seedlings that survived was 40% lower than that of control seedlings. Our results confirmed that the hydraulic safety margins, defined as the difference between seasonal minimum water potential and xylem water potential leading to 12, 50 and 88% of hydraulic conductivity loss, were good predictors of probability of tree mortality. Therefore, hydraulic safety margins are useful functional traits that can be used to compare the vulnerability of various species to drought and then provide crucial information to practitioners and policymakers to adjust forest management to climate change. We showed that three dominant conifer species of northern temperate forests were highly vulnerable to drought in future climates. Because drought is projected to be a significant threat to forests, understanding potentially adaptive physiological responses to drought, such as hydraulic safety margins of tree seedlings, is important for predicting the response of forest regeneration and composition in warmer and drier climates.
Published in The Conversation (La Conversation) (May 3rd 2023)
While it is true that individual trees are immobile, as a species they can actually move and migrate as well as birds do! However, this takes place over a much different time frame.
