Short term studies have suggested that ground based timber harvesting on wet sites can alter soil properties and inhibit early survival and growth of seedlings. Persistence of such negative effects may translate to losses in forest productivity over a rotation. During the fall and winter of 1989, numerous salvage logging operations were conducted during high soil moisture conditions on wet pine flats in the lower coastal plain of South Carolina following Hurricane Hugo. A long-term experiment (split-plot within an unbalanced randomized complete block design) allowed assessment of long term effects of rutted and compacted primary skid trails and subsequent site preparation on soil properties and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) productivity. The experiment had 12 blocks, four levels of site preparation as the whole plot factor (bedding, disking with bedding, disking, and no site preparation), and two levels of traffic as the subplot factor (primary skid trail, no obvious traffic). After 23 years, bedding and disking with bedding treatments effectively enhanced soil physical properties and stand productivity via promoting greater survival and stocking, but had little effect on the size of individual trees relative to disking and no site preparation treatments. Primary skid trails significantly reduced the size of individual trees, but had no appreciable long term effects on soil properties or stand productivity after 23 years. The study suggests that bedding is the most efficient practice to enhance soil properties, seedling survival, and stand productivity on wet sites. However, site preparation is not necessary for these soils and sites, if strictly intended to restore soil properties and stand productivity in primary skid trails. Reduction in individual tree sizes on primary skid trails emphasizes benefits in minimizing the spatial extent of disturbance. / Master of Science / Heavy equipment traffic associated with ground-based timber harvesting has potential to alter soil properties resulting in lower productivity of the subsequent forest. Various soil tillage techniques have been suggested to offset changes in soil properties and forest productivity on disturbed soils, and to enhance soil properties and forest productivity on undisturbed soils. An experiment was conducted on low-lying Atlantic Coastal Plain sites to compare the effects of four soil tillage treatments (bedding, disking, disking with bedding, no tillage) on soil properties and forest productivity 23 years after treatments were installed. Bedding displaces soil from furrows into continuous, linear mounds called beds, such that bed surfaces are above the original soil surface. Disking is a tillage practice commonly implemented in agriculture. For the disking with bedding treatment, plots were disked followed by bedding. The no tillage treatment served as a control. Additionally, the experiment provided comparison of soil properties and forest productivity between soils heavily disturbed by logging activities and relatively undisturbed soils. Bedding and disking with bedding created favorable, localized soil conditions that promoted greater loblolly pine survival which translated to approximately double the total stand volume per unit area relative to disking and no tillage treatments. Differences in the sizes of individual trees among tillage treatments were minimal. Heavily disturbed soils and soils undisturbed by logging activity were similar in terms of soil properties and loblolly pine volume per unit area; however, individual trees were smaller on heavily disturbed soils. The implications of this study provide practical guidance for forest management decisions. Of treatments compared, bedding is the most efficient to increase total stand productivity on poorly drained sites. Disking with bedding offers no additional benefits, but is more expensive to implement. Results also imply that soils disturbed by logging have potential to recover over time such that long term forest productivity is sustained. However, the reduction in individual tree sizes emphasizes benefits of minimizing soil disturbance during timber harvests.

The aim of this research is to develop an understanding of historic Cowichan perception and utilization of wetlands in their traditional territory. The Cowichan live on the south east coast of Vancouver Island on the Northwest Coast of North America, in an area with many wetland features. The story of Cowichan culture history is currently characterized, through archaeological work, as marine oriented. However, archaeological research to date does not represent the full history of the Cowichan people. This research sets out to re-balance the cultural history of the Cowichan, through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of all available sources that identify economic and social orientation in Cowichan culture history, in particular those coming from archaeology, ethnography and oral tradition. As a way of integrating these diverse sources, a ‘Native archaeology’ is developed. This is an approach, which places equal value on etic (cultural outsider) and emic (cultural insider) created sources, and seeks to identify areas of similarity and difference in order that a fuller understanding of the culture may be reached. By applying the Native archaeological approach to Cowichan culture history, the marine orientation is placed in the context of the role of riverine wetlands, which was important both in terms of subsistence and of the symbolic significance that these places have in the self-reflected identity of the Cowichan. In this way, a story is to

This thesis is a case study using paleoethnobotanical analysis of Kilgii Gwaay, a 10,700-year-old wet site in southern Haida Gwaii to explore the use of plants by ancestral Haida. The research investigated questions of early Holocene wood artifact technologies and other plant use before the large-scale arrival of western redcedar (Thuja plicata), a cultural keystone species for Haida in more recent times. The project relied on small-scale excavations and sampling from two main areas of the site: a hearth complex and an activity area at the edge of a paleopond. The archaeobotanical assemblage from these two areas yielded 23 plant taxa representing 14 families in the form of wood, charcoal, seeds, and additional plant macrofossils. A salmonberry and elderberry processing area suggests a seasonal summer occupation. Hemlock wedges and split spruce wood and roots show evidence for wood-splitting technology. The assemblage demonstrates potential for site interpretation based on archaeobotanical remains for the Northwest Coast of North America and highlights the importance of these otherwise relatively unknown plant resources from this early time period. / Graduate / cohenjenny2@gmail.com