Catastrophic wind disturbance events have profound impacts on forests in many parts of the world. As an ecological factor, catastrophic wind events not only cause extensive damage to trees, but also affect many aspects of the disturbed forests including community structure, individual tree growth, tree regeneration, species diversity, and ecosystem function (Coutts & Grace, 1993; Ennos, 1997; Martin & Ogden, 2006; Bellingham, 2008; Hoeppner et al., 2008; Zeng et al., 2009). Although catastrophic windstorms are easily seen to have major impacts on forest structure, the longer-term effects on less conspicuous ecosystem attributes such as species composition and diversity are more complex, and at smaller scales of observation are relatively unpredictable (DeCoster, 1996; McMaster, 2005; Xi et al., 2008a; Oswalt & Oswalt, 2008). Many factors, meteorologic, topographic and biologic, simultaneously interact to influence the complexity of patterns of damage and dynamics of recovery. A deep understanding of wind disturbance effects is essential for effective forest management and biodiversity conservation. This information is particularly important as ongoing climate change is likely to sustain the recent increased incidence of major windstorms for the foreseeable decades (Goldenberg et al., 2001; Emanuel, 2005; Xi, 2005; Xi & Peet, 2008a; Stanturf et al., 2007). The effects of wind damage have long been recognized and observed by foresters and ecologists (e.g., Baker, 1915; Bromely, 1939; Curtis, 1943; Spurr, 1956; Webb, 1958) and extensive research has been conducted on the ecological impacts of catastrophic windstorms (Canham & Loucks, 1984; Foster, 1988; Webb, 1988, 1989; Boucher et al., 1990; Brokaw & Grear, 1991; Walker, 1991; Peterson & Pickett, 1991; Merrens & Peart, 1992; Bellingham et al., 1992, 1994, 1995; Boose et al., 1994; Vandermeer et al., 1995; Imbert et al., 1996; Turner et al., 1997; Herbert et al., 1999; Sinton et al., 2000; Burslem et al., 2000; Boose et al., 2001; Platt et al., 2002; Woods, 2000; Peterson, 2004; Uriarte et al., 2004; Zhao et al., 2006; Uriarte & Papaik, 2007; Xi et al., 2008b; Prengaman et al., 2008; Zeng et al., 2009). This work has greatly increased our understanding of the importance of wind disturbance for community composition and ecosystem function, and has led to the wide acceptance among researchers of a nonequilibrium perspective (Reice, 1994, 2001). As a consequence of this and related work, the traditional view of wind as a simple damage force has evolved into the contemporary view of wind as a spatially heterogeneous, multi-scale disturbance agent that affects forest structure, diversity, dynamics, and ecosystem processes (Xi, 2005).
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2011
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2011-04-19
- Fields of study
Geography, Environmental Science
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