Dan Binkley - Forest Ecology: An Evidence-Based Approach

1. Preface
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2
4. Chapter 3
5. Chapter 4
6. Chapter 5
7. Chapter 6
8. Chapter 7
9. Chapter 8
10. Chapter 9
11. Chapter 10
12. Chapter 11
13. Chapter 12
14. Chapter 13
15. Chapter 14

DAN BINKLEY

School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University

This edition first published 2021
2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Binkley, Dan, author. | John Wiley & Sons, publisher.
Title: Forest ecology : an evidencebased approach / Dan Binkley, School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University.
Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : WileyBlackwell, 2021. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021001373 (print) | LCCN 2021001374 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119703204 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119704409 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119704416 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Forest ecology.
Classification: LCC QH541.5.F6 B555 2021 (print) | LCC QH541.5.F6 (ebook) | DDC 577.3dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001373
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001374

Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: Dan Binkley

The development of forests always includes contingent events: if an event happens, such as a fire, windstorm, or insect outbreak, the future of the forest will unfold differently than if the event did not happen (or if it happened in some other way at another time). This book would not be in front of you without the contingent event of Wally showing up as a young professor when I was an undergraduate at the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University. Wally's engaging curiosity, interest in students, and active research program pulled my interests and future path into the domain of forest ecology. He continued to be a mentor through my grad student days at other universities, and most recently he led us through establishing the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (modeled on NAU's Ecological Restoration Institute). It's been a good path.
Thanks Wally.

Dan Binkley
Fort Collins, Colorado

This book supports learning about forest ecology. A good place to start is with a few points about knowledge, followed by a framework on how to approach forest ecology, some key features of using graphs to interpret information, and finally coming around to how to think about questions and answers in forests.

Humans try to understand complex worlds through a range of perspectives. Art tries to capture some essential features of a complex world, emphasizing how parts interact to form wholes. Religions explain how worlds work now, how the worlds came to be, and what will come next. Both art and religion develop from ideas and concepts, originated by individual artists or passed down by religious societies. How do we know if a work of art or an idea in religion represents the real world accurately? This question generally isnt important. Art that satisfies the artist is good art, and religions are accepted on faith.

Art and religion have been evolving for more than 100000 years, and lands and forests have been part of that development. One of the first written stories is a religious one from the Epic of Gilgamesh, from more than 4000years ago from the Mesopotamian city of Uruk (now within Iraq). Gilgamesh and a companion traveled to the distant, sacred Cedar Mountain to cut trees. Lines from the epic poem include (based on AlRawi and George ):

They stood there marveling at the forest, observing the height of the cedars They were gazing at the Cedar Mountain, dwelling of gods, sweet was its shade, full of delight. All tangled was the thorny undergrowth, the forest a thick canopy, cedars so entangled it had no ways in. For one league on all sides cedars sent forth saplings, cypresses for twothirds of a league. Through all the forest a bird began to sing answering one another, a constant din was the noise. A solitary treecricket set off a noisy chorus. A wood pigeon was moaning, a turtle dove calling in answer. At the call of the stork, the forest exults. At the cry of the francolin bird, the forest exults in plenty. Monkey mothers sing aloud, a youngster monkey shrieks like a band of musicians and drummers, daily they bash out a rhythm