• Kuehne, Christian
  University of Maine
  
• Puhlick, Joshua
  University of Maine
  
• Weiskittel, Aaron
  University of Maine
  

To date, 50 locations with a total area of approximately 175,000 acres make up Maine’s Ecological Reserve System. An Ecological Reserve is generally defined as an area where timber harvesting is prohibited and natural disturbance events are allowed to proceed without significant human influence. Ecological Reserves encompass some of the most remote and ecologically important places in Maine. Beginning in 2002 and 2004, respectively, a system of long term monitoring plots was established on state-owned Ecological Reserves and preserves owned by The Nature Conservancy. As of 2017, plots in 20 Reserves were remeasured 10 years after initial inventory, which allowed for the first analysis of changes over time. Furthermore, this initial assessment of Ecological Reserve Monitoring data quantified differences in forest structure between Reserves and Maine’s managed forests for a statewide comparison.

Our findings indicate the forest composition of Ecological Reserve plots reflects the distribution of forest types across Maine’s forest landscape. For the Ecological Reserves, sampling accuracy was acceptable for some metrics such as basal area and total downed woody debris volume. However, this sampling accuracy applies only to metrics measured on plots within dominant forest types in inventory round 1. Multiple metrics of forest structure suggested greater stand complexity on Ecological Reserves than managed forestland in Maine. This result was most evident in two attributes: very large live trees per acre and large standing dead trees per acre. Longer term sampling data will be needed to verify trends over time. However, this assessment of ten-year changes indicated that Ecological Reserves are still accumulating volume, partially reflecting the past harvesting history of many Reserves prior to their formal establishment as Ecological Reserves.