Can Ecosystem-process Studies Contribute to New Management Strategies in Coastal Pacific Northwest and Alaska?

The question of whether ecosystem process studies can be made relevant to new, emerging management strategies to achieve ecosystem sustainability on U.S. Federal lands is addressed by examining a small sample of studies underway in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Processes being studied by many researchers—other than those directly associated with habitat creation— appear largely unrelated to policy statements such as the Northwest Forest Plan (ROD 1994). Yet these processes appear to underpin the broader goals of ecosystem sustainability and, fundamentally, the Plan itself. Studies of successional, windthrow, podzolization, and productivity processes in southeast Alaska forests, and studies on the role of early-successional species in changing mineral-soil organic matter in Pacific Northwest forests, are briefly described. Examples are given of how to use information from these studies in management strategies, some of which are being implemented by managers. We conclude that management studies—designed with help from ecosystem-process researchers—are a viable method to link process research with management for ecosystem sustainability.