Effects of even-aged timber management on the breeding forest bird community in the northern temperate rainforests of southeastern Alaska

I characterized the forest-breeding bird community in primary temperate rainforest stands and then measured any differences in songbird species composition, abundance, species diversity, and guild composition in 5 age-classes of even-age second-growth stands. Mean species richness and diversity were highest in old-growth stands and 12 species showed a significant positive rank-correlation with old-growth. The avian community observed in clearcut stands were subsets of the avian community found in old-growth stands. Even at 75 years of age, clearcut stands still differed from old-growth in avian community composition and structure. Under the USDA Forest Service's (USFS) planned 100-year rotation, my results indicate that cut stands could fail to recover 10--25% of their original avian community, including at least one of the USFS' forest indicator species. These findings are particularly relevant to forest managers considering the importance of species composition and functional composition to enabling ecosystem processes.