Historically, open woodlands were common in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma, where closed canopy forest prevail today. To return forests to this open condition, the Ouachita National Forest uses thinning and prescribed burning to reduce stem density of woody species and increase diversity of herbaceous plants and associated fauna. In 2012, the support of a nationally funded project called the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP) furthered this work. The goal of the CFLRP is to encourage collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration on priority forest landscapes. For the last 6 years, the Forest Service has worked with The Nature Conservancy to monitor progress toward the Desired Future Condition in the shortleaf pine-bluestem ecosystem. Two measurements of 100 ten-meter radius plots were measured three years apart to determine changes in basal area, tree stem density, species richness, native species richness, and FQI (Floristic Quality Index).
Results/Conclusions
Overall, basal area and stem density changed little between years, while total species richness, average ground layer species richness per plot, ground layer cover, and average FQI per plot increased. Changes in vegetation attributes were dependent on management history and varied by covertype (shortleaf pine vs. loblolly pine overstory). Fire alone or in conjunction with thinning moved plots closer to (and often into) Desired Future Condition. Loblolly pine plots had greater herbaceous diversity than shortleaf pine plots, but this may have been due to more frequent burning of the loblolly pine plots.