Attributes and indicators of old-growth and successional Douglas-fir forests on Vancouver Island

The Douglas-fir forests of coastal British Columbia are within the most heavily modified forest ecosystem types in coastal BC and local land managers are developing new forestry practices to retain elements of old growth within the managed forest area. To determine how successful these practices are requires the selection and monitoring of appropriate attributes and knowledge on how they change with stand development. In this paper we summarize previously published results from an extensive data set on four Douglas-fir dominated sites located on eastern Vancouver Island. Data were collected as part of the Coastal Forest Chronosequences project which was addressing questions on (1) how does conversion to managed forests impact species and forest structural diversity and (2) how does this diversity recover in older second-growth stands. Each site contained four stands, a postharvest chronosequence: regeneration (R, 5–10 years), immature (I, 25–45 years), and maturing (M, 75–95 years) stands, and an old grow...