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Introduction: Over the past decade, ecological forestry has become more incorporated into many forest management organizations. While this approach has sought to emulate of natural disturbance regimes with silvicultural practices, it also has increased the perceived cost of forestry operations through increased rotation lengths, more extensive road systems, and/or increased liability costs (i.e., from maintaining standing snags). The Forest Ecosystem Research Program (FERP) was initiated to develop silvicultural systems based on natural disturbances patterns in the Northeast, yet provide greater economic returns than might be achieved with the selection systems that most closely approximate the gap dynamics of Northeast Forests. This web page provides brief overview of the FERP experiment and highlights some of the ongoing interdisciplinary research being conducted in the program. FERP Objectives: 1) Assess ecosystem effects associated with gap-harvesting systems, 2) Explore potential for developing alternative silvicultural systems based on regional disturbance ecology, 3) Determine financial and operation practicality of an expanding gap silvicultural systems, and 4) Increase understanding about forest ecosystem structure and process in the Acadian ecoregion.
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