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Type: Conference Proceedings
Author(s): Ralph E. J. Boerner
Publication Date: 2006

Ecosystem restoration in most terrestrial North American ecosystems focuses on establishing a plant community that either resembles closely the pre-alteration vegetation or meets established guidelines for plant cover or density. Such an approach is based on the assumption that restoring community structure will inevitably result in restoration of ecosystem function. As the primary criteria for assessing the success of restoration efforts are also community structure-based, the validity of the structure-function trade off is rarely tested, especially in terrestrial settings. As early as 1940 professional soil scientists called for increased attention to the quantification of forest soil structure and physiochemical properties so that benchmarks for future restoration could be established. As J.T. Auten stated in 1940, the productive soil must precede the productive forest. This presentation reviews the forest soil data sets available from the period prior to 1920 (i.e. prior to the widespread implementation of fire suppression) and 1920 to 1950. I will also review the status of belowground criteria in the literature as part of recent national-scale restoration efforts, and will discuss alternative parameters for use in establishing realistic and ecologically meaningful belowground criteria for incorporation into future ecosystem restoration planning and evaluation.

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Citation: Boerner, Ralph E. 2006. Incorporating belowground benchmarks into forest ecosystem restoration prescriptions. Proceedings of the 91st Annual Meeting of the Ecological Socity of America: Icons and Upstarts in Ecology. Aug 6, 2006. Ecological Society of America. Washington, DC. 37 pp.

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Alaska    California    Eastern    Great Basin    Hawaii    Northern Rockies    Northwest    Rocky Mountain    Southern    Southwest    National
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Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 2055