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Vanessa R. Lane, Karl V. Miller, Steven B. Castleberry, Darren A. Miller, T. Bently Wigley, Rebecca L. Mihalco, Small Mammal Responses to Site Preparation Techniques in North Carolina Coastal Plain Pine Plantations, Southern Journal of Applied Forestry, Volume 37, Issue 4, 1 November 2013, Pages 226–232, https://doi.org/10.5849/sjaf.13-028
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Small mammals are ecologically important and should be considered as part of the sustainable management of pine (Pinus spp.) plantations, a common forest type within the southeastern United States. Few studies, however, have described how combinations of mechanical and chemical site preparation and herbaceous weed control (HWC) used in pine plantations affect pocosin small mammal communities. For 6 or 7 years after site preparation depending on treatment, we examined small mammal responses to six treatments of increasing intensity via combinations of mechanical and chemical site preparation with HWC in six loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina. We removal trapped for 144,000 trap-nights and captured 3,795 small mammals during winter 2002–2006 and 2008. Pine management techniques had short-term (1–2-year) effects on small mammal captures, species richness, and diversity, although timing and magnitude varied by species. Small mammal parameters were greater in strip-shear plots than in chopped plots for 2 years after site preparation, less in plots receiving chemical site preparation than in plots without chemical site preparation for 1–2 years, and greater with banded than broadcast HWC for 1 year after application. It appears that pocosin small mammal communities are sustainable within intensively managed pine stands of the southeastern coastal plain.
