AUTHOR=Marty Charles , Fradette Olivier , Duchesne Louis , Faubert Patrick , Ouimet Rock , Villeneuve Claude TITLE=Natural regeneration potential and dynamics in boreal lichen woodlands of eastern Canada following soil scarification JOURNAL=Frontiers in Forests and Global Change VOLUME=6 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/forests-and-global-change/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1146758 DOI=10.3389/ffgc.2023.1146758 ISSN=2624-893X ABSTRACT=
Boreal lichen woodlands (LWs) are stable low tree-density zones of the Canadian boreal forest whose afforestation has been proposed as a way to create new C sinks and thus mitigate climate change. Planting operations in these remote areas are however costly and time-consuming, and may not be necessary when soil scarification is followed by dense natural regeneration. In the present study, we assessed the natural regeneration potential and dynamics in six boreal LWs of Québec, Canada, 11 years after soil scarification. The number, size (height and stem diameter) and age of seedlings were measured in 2-4 sampling plots per site (18 plots in total). Our data show that scarification operations produced on average 1,400 m2 ha–1 of exposed mineral soil (scarification intensity of 14%) with, however, a large within-site variability. The natural regeneration was mainly composed of black spruce seedlings (> 95%), averaged ∼12,000 seedlings ha–1 across the six sites and significantly varied among sites, mostly due to the variation in scarification intensity. Seedling density averaged ∼9 seedlings m–2 of exposed mineral soil and increased with seed tree mean diameter at breast height (DBH) (