Excerpt from Managing Coarse Woody Debris in Forests of the Rocky Mountains Coarse woody debris can be incorporated into the surface soil horizon as freezing and thawing cycles move owd into the soil. Additionally, owd can be covered as soil moves downhill. Depending on the forest type, large amounts of owd can be left in the form of decaying tree roots. All of these materials, in the advanced stages of decay, can be active parts of the soil system as soil wood. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Fire-adapted forested ecosystems in the Southwest evolved with a continual flux of downed woody materiala structural component that is considered essential to a properly functioning forest ecosystem. The creation and accumulation of downed woody material depends on forest type, tree species, stage of succession/decay, the amount of insect and disease activity, climate, fire return intervals, windthrow, and management activities. In general, more downed woody material accumulates in forests with long fire return intervals (subalpine, mixed conifer, pinyon-juniper woodlands) than in forests with short fire return intervals, such as ponderosa pine. While early foresters saw downed woody material as waste, a potential source of insect and disease problems or a wildfire hazard, todays foresters and researchers have identified the large-size component of downed woody material.