Most silvicultural methods have been developed with the principal aim of ensuring adequate regeneration of commercial tree species after harvesting. Much less effort has been directed towards developing methods that benefit the re-establishment of all forest biodiversity. The concept of 'forest influence' relates the probability of species re-establishment to the distance from mature forest. This idea is central to contemporary retention forestry practices as well as connectivity theory in natural landscape management. Some species from all major forest biodiversity groups respond to forest influence following harvesting, however, the temporal and spatial scales of forest influence are mostly poorly known. This paper reviews global knowledge of mechanisms and scales at which forest influence operates, and shows that these are highly variable. Important general factors and mechanisms that underlie the ability of organisms to re-establish include qualities of retained elements, dispersal capacity, suitability of habitat conditions, and interspecific interactions, all of which may vary with distance from intact mature forest. Forest influence may enable species to persist in harvested areas through buffering of microclimate, and/or assist re-colonisation via proximity to source populations or essential habitat elements. Although foresters have often applied a "rule of thumb" that the extent of forest influence is within one tree height of mature forest, existing scientific literature provides little evidence of a universal relationship between canopy height of retained forest and re-establishment success. One-tree-height-from-retention guidelines can help plan harvest layouts, but only as long as plans allow for variation in re-establishment success among species and groups. The evidence from this review is that variability in harvest layouts will positively benefit biodiversity conservation in managed forest landscapes. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Forest influence, Edge effects, Variable retention, Clearcutting, Dispersal, Re-colonisation, Natural disturbance
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Ecology
Research Field:	Terrestrial ecology
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences
UTAS Author:	Baker, SC (Associate Professor Sue Baker)
UTAS Author:	Balmer, J (Ms Jayne Balmer)
UTAS Author:	Jordan, GJ (Professor Greg Jordan)
ID Code:	84907
Year Published:	2013
Funding Support:	Australian Research Council (LP1010050)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	96
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2013-06-05
Last Modified:	2018-03-28
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