Abstract Contemporary forest management is increasingly focused on maintaining ecosystem function and services including biodiversity conservation. As a result, harvest guidelines related to retention of live trees and woody biomass (fine and coarse residue arising from harvesting) have been developed to provide benefits for wildlife, but there is much uncertainty on the effectiveness of these guidelines depending on stage of succession, retention levels, and focal taxa. We used an operational-scale, fully replicated factorial experiment to determine the effects of both tree retention (none, dispersed, aggregated) and woody residue harvesting (no removal, 20% retention, all removed) on breeding bird and small mammal communities in aspen forests 7–8 years after harvest. Bird community metric responses showed a clear and consistent positive response to tree retention; both tree retention configurations resulted in higher total abundance, increased diversity, and higher species richness compared to stands with no tree retention. There was no difference in community metrics between the retention configurations and no evidence that early successional species were negatively affected by tree retention. Total abundance of small mammals was lower in clear-cuts compared to tree retention treatments; moreover, clear-cut stands had lower species diversity compared to stands with the aggregated tree retention. There were limited effects of biomass harvest treatments on small mammal communities, likely because actual biomass removal was much lower than experimental targets. Overall, our results provide conclusive evidence on the continued benefits of tree retention on wildlife communities se0ven and eight years post-harvest in regenerating aspen forests.

中文翻译：

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树木保留和木质生物量去除对鸟类和小型哺乳动物群落的影响

摘要 当代森林管理越来越注重维持生态系统功能和服务，包括生物多样性保护。因此，已经制定了与保留活树和木本生物量（收获产生的细粒和粗粒残渣）相关的采伐准则，以便为野生动物带来好处，但根据演替阶段，这些准则的有效性存在很大不确定性，保留水平和焦点分类群。我们使用了一个操作规模的、完全复制的析因实验来确定树木保留（无、分散、聚集）和木本残留物收获（无移除，20% 保留，全部移除）对白杨中繁殖鸟类和小型哺乳动物群落的影响采伐后 7-8 年的森林。鸟类社区指标响应显示对树木保留有明确且一致的积极响应；与没有树木保留的林分相比，两种树木保留配置都导致更高的总丰度、更高的多样性和更高的物种丰富度。保留配置之间的群落指标没有差异，并且没有证据表明早期演替物种受到树木保留的负面影响。与树木保留处理相比，在砍伐中小型哺乳动物的总丰度较低；此外，与具有聚集树木保留的林分相比，砍伐林分的物种多样性较低。生物质收获处理对小型哺乳动物群落的影响有限，可能是因为实际的生物质去除量远低于实验目标。全面的，