Nutritional Carrying Capacity for Cervids Following Disturbance in Hardwood Forests.

Closed-canopy forests dominate the landscape across much of the eastern United States and often lack a well-developed understory, which limits nutrition available for cervids. We evaluated the influence of timber harvest combined with prescribed fire, herbicide treatment, or fire and herbicide treatment in young mixed-hardwood forests on forage availability and nutritional carrying capacity (NCC) for elk (Cervus canadensis) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Cumberland Mountains, Tennessee, USA, July-August 2013-2015. We compared forage availability, NCC using a 12% and 14% crude protein nutritional constraint, and vegetation composition in untreated mature forest stands, reclaimed surface mines, and 6 timber harvest treatments (timber harvest only, with early growing-season fire, with late growing-season fire, with herbicide only, with herbicide and early growing-season fire, and with herbicide and late growing-season fire). Forage availability in treatments involving timber harvest was greater than in untreated mature forest stands and reclaimed surface mines. Forage availability estimates in treatments involving herbicide and prescribed fire were less than all other timber harvest treatments. Nutritional carrying capacity estimates at the 12% and 14% crude protein constraints were greater in timber harvest treatments and on reclaimed surface mines than in untreated mature forest stands. Herbaceous species coverage was greater and woody species coverage was less on reclaimed surface mines and in timber harvest treatments involving herbicide and prescribed fire than in all other timber harvest treatments and untreatedmature forest stands. Greater coverage of herbaceous forage species in treatments involving herbicide and prescribed fire and on reclaimed surface mines compensated for reduced forage availability and resulted in NCC estimates similar to all other timber harvest treatments. Our data indicate using periodic prescribed fire and following an herbicide application with prescribed fire are effective techniques to transition young mixed-hardwood forest communities to early successional communities andmaintain increased forage availability and NCC for elk and deer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]