John Prince Research Forest - Transition

Treatment: actively facilitate change to encourage adaptive responses

Management Goals

  • Promote complex forest structure and age class diversity
  • Maintain current species diversity, while promoting future-adapted species
  • Maintain long-term carbon storage capacity, coarse woody debris and wildlife habitat
Forested patches in the transition treatment depicted facing forward and from overhead.
Transition treatment, and aerial overview. Photo credit: Che Elkin, John Prince Research Forest.

Strategies & approaches

Western white pine seedling with hand to the left to show size.
Western white pine seedling planted in 2023 in the
transition treatment, John Prince Research Forest.
 
  • Irregular shelterwood system with target overstory residual basal area of 5 m2/ha.
  • Residual leave trees were Douglas-fir and various deciduous species
  • Planted current, future-adapted southern/ drier sourced species: Douglas-fir on mesic and drier sites, hybrid white spruce on wetter sites and lodgepole pine across all sites
  • Planted novel species: western red-cedar, western hemlock on wet sites and ponderosa pine, western larch and western white pine on drier sites

Management Goals & Treatments

Resistance

Back to Forest Main Page

Resilience

Site Leads & Partners

Dr. Che Elkin, (University of Northern British Columbia), Sue Grainger (University of Northern British Columbia), and Dr. Kristen Waring (Northern Arizona University), and Dexter Hodder (JPRF, University of Northern British Columbia) are the site leads for the John Prince Research Forest ASCC site. Key partners include Colorado State University, Natural Resources Canada, B.C. Ministry of Forest, and the Northern Institute for Applied Climate Science.

Headshot of Ché Elkin.

Ché Elkin
Site Lead

Associate Professor Ecosystem
Science & Management Program
University of Northern British Columbia
Forestry Sciences Laboratory
3333 University Way
Prince George, B.C. V2N 4Z9
Phone: 250-960-5004
che.elkin@unbc.ca

Headshot of Sue Grainger.

Sue Grainger
Site Lead

John Prince Research Forest
Box 2378
Fort St James, BC, Canada, V0J 1P0
Phone: 250-996-3700
grainger@unbc.ca

Headshot of Kristen Waring.

Kristen Waring
Site Lead

Professor – School of Forestry
College of the Environment, Forestry,
and Natural Sciences
Northern Arizona University
Southwest Forest Science Complex,
200 E Pine Knoll Dr
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
Phone: 928-523-4920
Kristen.Waring@nau.edu

Dexter hodder
Site Lead

John Prince Research Forest,
Director, Research and Education
John Prince Research Forest
Box 2378
Fort St James, BC, Canada, V0J 1P0
Phone: 250-996-3700