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Stream temperature impacts resulting from forest harvesting in riparian areas have been documented in a number of locations in North America. As part of the Stuart-Takla Fisheries-Forestry Interaction Project, we have investigated the influence of three variable-retention riparian harvesting prescriptions on temperatures in first-order streams in the interior sub-boreal forests of northern British Columbia. Prescriptions were designed to represent a range of possible harvesting options outlined by the Forest Practices Code of B.C., or associated best management practice guidelines. Five years after the completion of harvesting treatments, temperatures remained four to six degrees warmer, and diurnal temperature variation remained higher than in the control streams regardless of treatment. Initially, the high-retention treatment acted to mitigate the temperature effects of the harvesting, but 3 successive years of windthrow was antecedent to reduced canopy density and equivalent temperature impacts. We speculate that late autumn reversals in the impacts of forest harvesting also occur. Temperature impacts in this study remained within the tolerance limits of local biota. However, even modest temperature changes could alter insect production, egg incubation, fish rearing, migration timing, and susceptibility to disease, and the effects of large changes to daily temperature range are not well understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the future timber supply in the Northern Hemisphere will come from boreal and sub-boreal forests, yet there has been little investigation of how aquatic communities in these regions would be affected by logging. We conducted an empirical, comparative study to investigate the effects of streamside clear-cut logging on benthic macroinvertebrates, algal standing stock, and in-stream physical and chemical habitats in the sub-boreal central interior region of British Columbia. We found that streams that flowed through old-growth forests (sites termed "not logged") did not differ from streams flowing through older logged forests (where the riparian zones were harvested 20-25 years before our sampling; sites termed "older logged") with respect to macroinvertebrate total density or biomass, feeding guild density or biomass, and chlorophyll a biomass. However, streams flowing through newly logged forests (where the riparian zones were harvested within 5 years of our sampling; sites termed "recently logged") had nearly twice the macroinvertebrate biomass as those in not logged or older logged sites and higher chlorophyll a biomass. There were no differences among the three stream categories in regard to structural aspects of the physical habitat (e.g., substrate composition, large organic debris density, dimensions of pools and riffles). Streamside logging in sub-boreal forests appears to enhance primary and secondary production, but this phenomenon may only be evident for the first two decades following logging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]