Impact of the rust Puccinia linkii on Highbush Cranberry, Viburnum edule, near Smithers, British Columbia

The berries of Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum edule) are an important food source for wildlife and for people in rural areas. In 2012 and 2013, many Highbush Cranberry plants in northwestern British Columbia were unusually severely infected by the rust Puccinia linkii, with telia covering up to half of each leaf. Given the ecological importance of the overwintering berries, I studied the impact of the infection on the production and quality of berries in mixed forests near Smithers, British Columbia. Sites where Highbush Cranberry bushes were infected with the rust had significantly more undeveloped berries. Plants from sites with higher levels of infection produced berries with significantly less sugar. Dead leaf tissue was also significantly more prevalent in infected plants. This study provides evidence that Puccinia linkii may stress plants, leading to reduced quality and quantity of berries, especially if the severity of the infection increases with the increasingly moist springs that are projected for the region

Biodiversity and land management from concept to practice

The Canadian government is committed to conserving biodiversity. This thesis asks which landscape patterns will best conserve biodiversity in managed forests in British Columbia. First, I define an appropriate measurement of biodiversity; then, I develop a decision support tool to assess the impacts of planned management on biodiversity, illustrated with a case study; and finally, I provide options for the amount and pattern of old forest to preserve. Biodiversity can be measured at gene, species and ecosystem levels. Ecosystems provide the best measurement for forest managers. Ecosystems are a comprehensive measurement over large temporal and spatial scales, they develop predictably over time, and they are directly linked to the land. A coarse ecosystem approach must be accompanied by attention to certain species. Research must address the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystems and must help establish goals for management. I develop decision support software (SJMFOR) which simulates effects of forest management and stand development in 5,000 to 50,000 ha forests, calculates landscape composition and ecosystem pattern and predicts habitat distributions for selected species. In a case study, the low-profit management plan better conserves biodiversity, generating more old forest, larger patches and less edge habitat than the high-profit plan. I explore the general relationship between animal spatial requirements (home range, dispersal, and viable population size) and landscape pattern (patch size and abundance) using a scale-independent model. Home range size limits landscape suitability when patch size is smaller than home range size, and dispersal limits suitability when patch size exceeds 10 times home range size. Decreasing habitat abundance increases inter-patch distance, limiting dispersal. Landscape connectivity reflects threshold effects which depend on habitat abundance. First, landscapes are either mostly connected or mostly unconnected by dispersal, suggesting that population decline may occur without warning. Second, small habitat patches merge to form large contiguous areas at approximately 40% habitat abundance (given the assumptions used in the model). When habitat abundance is less than 40%, large patches or mixed patch sizes are good management options. When habitat abundance exceeds 40%, patch size is less important.Forestry, Faculty ofGraduat

Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA)/Department of Energy (DOE) cooperative agreement final report

This S and T product is a culmination of the activities, including research of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) in developing and implementing inspection procedures and the out-of-service criteria for states and tribes to use when inspecting HRCQ and Transuranic shipments of radioactive materials. The report also contains the results of a pilot study to test the procedures

Simulated

effects of forest management options on timber and caribou habitat in the Northern Columbia Mountains Assessing the application of multivariable habitat models in landscape simulatio

Simulated effects of forest management options on timber and caribou habitat in the Northern Columbia Mountains

Introduction Mountain caribou, an ecotype of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), are a species at risk and so are a primary focus in forest management in the Columbia Mountains Forest District. Two multivariate habitat models have been developed based on telemetry data to predict caribou habitat by associating forest cover and physiographic variables at various spatial scales and seasons: one using logistic regression (Apps et al. 1998, 1999) and the other using the Mahalanobis distance statistic (Clark, 1993). Using a GIS, these models produce maps that can be used to classify the landscape into good, moderate, poor and non caribou habitat with relative certainty. Understanding the long-term consequences of management actions on caribou habitat is critical to develop forest management policies that minimize the risk to caribou populations while achieving other objectives such as timber extraction. Applying caribou habitat models in other spatial contexts (e.g. Golden Timb