John Prince Research Forest
The John Prince Research Forest has developed an ASCC project site within British Columbia’s Central Interior Plateau. The research forest is collaboratively managed by the Tl’azt’en First Nation, Binche Whut’en, and the University of Northern British Columbia. The land is representative of Canada’s dry sub-boreal spruce biogeoclimatic zone and covers more than 16,000 hectares, the largest such research forest in North America. The territory includes two large lakes, hundreds of kilometers of streams, and more than 2,000 hectares of wetlands. Located within the territory of the Tl’azt’en, Binche Whut’en, and Nak’azdli First Nations, this working forest is a dynamic laboratory for the study of ecological and cultural impacts of climate change, and the management activities that might ameliorate those effects.
Key Projected
Climate Change Impacts
Key projected climate change impacts that the project team considered for the John Prince Research Forest include:
- Increased summer and winter temperatures leading to modeled shifts away from the sub-boreal spruce classification and climate mismatches with ecosystem components such as insect life cycles and plant phenology.
- Climate models predict significant changes to how much and at what frequency and intensity precipitation will arrive in this region, leading to increased risk of drought stress, altered site hydrology, and changing fire regimes, all affecting forest composition, health, and productivity.
Climate change will present challenges and opportunities for accomplishing the management objectives of the John Prince Research Forest, including:
Challenges
- Altered habitat — Species such as hybrid white spruce are at risk of shifted or reduced suitable habitat within the study region. A temporal mismatch in climatic change versus species migration could increase stress and disturbance risk before a different or novel ecosystem assemblage establishes. A stable and resilient forested ecosystem also may have difficulty establishing in the wake of major disturbance if the extant forest is not sufficiently resilient to absorb the impacts of climate change. Cultural knowledge and practices that are tied to natural ecosystem linkages and processes and existing ecosystem plant and wildlife assemblages could be disrupted or lost during transitions.
- Altered hydrology — Related to habitat changes, Even with an increase in overall precipitation, variability in delivery, surface runoff (with increased potential for water quality degradation), and evapotranspiration rates means there is an increased possibility of drought stress events during warmer months. Additionally, it is predicted that regional hydrology will be decreasingly driven by snowpack dynamics, as early breakup and more frequent rain on snow events decrease the volume and duration of snow cover, affecting growth dynamics and wildlife habitat.
- Altered fire regime — Stands in the sub-boreal spruce zone historically burn on a 100-200-year interval. As hydrology changes, a shortening or intensifying of this fire cycle by periods of increased drought stress could increase the severity of wildfire, potentially changing community composition, favoring early-seral species such as paper birch and trembling aspen, to the exclusion of later-stage species such as Douglas-fir, hybrid white spruce, and subalpine fir.
- Altered threat interaction – Climate change can increase the risk from endemic and novel pests and pathogens including:
- Blister and gall rusts
- Tomentosus root rot and other root disease
- Dothistroma needle blight,
- Mountain pine, Douglas fir, and spruce beetle outbreaks
- Defoliator outbreaks
Hardwood diseases
Opportunities
- Altered habitat — Novel habitat suitability can carry the opportunity of new and potentially diverse species compositions, including western red-cedar, ponderosa pine, western larch, and others. Increasing the relative abundance of current and novel species that are adapted to future conditions can produce a more resilient and productive forest.
- Carbon storage — provided there is sufficient additional precipitation, some northern forests may show increased productivity.
Management Goals & Treatments
Resistance
Resilience
Transition
Implementation
[PLACEHOLDER TEXT]
A team of natural resource specialists from the Chippewa National Forest (CNF) and regional scientists participated in a three-day workshop in July 2013 to develop the ASCC treatments for the site. The team developed a set of management objectives, desired future conditions, and silvicultural tactics for each adaptation option: Resistance, Resilience, & Transition.
Monitoring
Monitoring is an essential component of the ASCC study. Research partners from many institutions are working together to investigate the effectiveness of different silvicultural treatments aimed at creating adaptive ecosystems. Some of the monitoring items include:
- Survival and growth of planted seedlings
- Residual tree survival and growth
- Microclimate conditions
- Culturally important understory species
- Overstory species mixture
- Endemic and novel pest presence and levels
Progress & Next Steps
The four adaptation treatments (control, resistance, resilience, and transition), as well as a clear-cut with retention treatment, where replicated four times across a 490-acre (200-hectare) area on the John Prince Research Forest. During the summer of 2021 field crews collected pre-harvest, baseline data on forest overstory, midstory, shrub layer, understory, regen, and CWD. Winter harvesting was performed in January and February 2022. During the summer of 2022 field crews established permanent sample plots and re-measured stand structure and the vegetation communities immediately following harvest.
Planting across all treatments was completed in 2023 and ongoing. survival monitoring and collection of individual seedling data continues. Baseline forest health data was collected on a subset of the permanent sample plots in 2023.
Site Leads & Partners
Dr. Che Elkin, (University of Northern British Columbia), Sue Grainger (University of Northern British Columbia), and Dr. Kristen Waring (Northern Arizona University), and Dexter Hodder (JPRF, University of Northern British Columbia) are the site leads for the John Prince Research Forest ASCC site. Key partners include Colorado State University, Natural Resources Canada, B.C. Ministry of Forest, and the Northern Institute for Applied Climate Science.
Ché Elkin
Site Lead
Associate Professor Ecosystem Science & Management Program University of Northern British Columbia Forestry Sciences Laboratory 3333 University Way Prince George, B.C. V2N 4Z9 Phone: 250-960-5004 [email protected]
Sue Grainger
Site Lead
John Prince Research Forest Box 2378 Fort St James, BC, Canada, V0J 1P0 Phone: 250-996-3700 [email protected]
Kristen Waring
Site Lead
Professor – School of Forestry College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences Northern Arizona University Southwest Forest Science Complex, 200 E Pine Knoll Dr Flagstaff, AZ 86011 Phone: 928-523-4920 [email protected]
Dexter Hodder
Site Lead
John Prince Research Forest, Director, Research and Education John Prince Research Forest Box 2378 Fort St James, BC, Canada, V0J 1P0 Phone: 250-996-3700 [email protected]