Silvicultural site preparation methods are used as planned disturbances for counteracting soil and vegetation constraints, as well as facilitating successful tree regeneration and growth. Understanding the possible effects of silvicultural site preparation on the ecosystem and evaluating site preparation as an ecological disturbance can help guide the selection and application of site preparation techniques for forest management goals. This review evaluates silvicultural site preparation techniques that are commonly used in boreal mixedwood ecosystems as agents of ecological disturbance by comparing the effects of each technique on the area disturbed and the degree of biomass modification, and then ordering them along a disturbance severity gradient. With a strong emphasis on the numerical estimation of the spatial footprint of different disturbances, broadcast burning typically has the highest disturbance severity, followed in order by broadcast herbicide use, mixing, plowing, disc trenching, mounding, scalping, and inverting. The evaluation of disturbance severity of various silvicultural site preparation techniques while using the proposed framework is feasible, in which quantitative assessments of area disturbed and biomass modification could be collected and assessed in most managed forests.

中文翻译：

---

造林场地准备的扰动生态学视角

造林地的准备方法被用作计划的干扰措施，以抵消土壤和植被的限制，并促进树木的成功繁殖和生长。了解造林场地准备对生态系统的可能影响，并评估场地准备作为一种生态干扰，可以帮助指导森林管理目标的场地准备技术的选择和应用。这篇评论通过比较每种技术对受干扰地区和生物量改性程度的影响，然后按照干扰严重度等级对它们进行排序，从而评估了北方混合木生态系统中通常用作生态干扰因子的造林现场准备技术。着重强调不同干扰的空间足迹的数值估计，广播燃烧通常具有最高的干扰严重性，其次是广播除草剂的使用，混合，耕作，盘式挖沟，堆砌，剥头皮和倒置。在使用建议的框架的同时，评估各种造林现场准备技术的干扰严重性是可行的，在这种评估中，可以在大多数人工林中收集和评估受干扰区域和生物量改性的定量评估。