Forest Productivity Enhancement and Compensatory Growth: A Review and Synthesis

This review and synthesis article attempts to integrate observations from forestry to contemporary development in related biological research fields to explore the issue of forest productivity enhancement and its contributions in mitigating the wood supply shortage now facing the forest sector. Compensatory growth has been clearly demonstrated in the long-term precommercial thinning and fertilization trial near the Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia, Canada. This phenomenon appears similar to many observations from other biological fields. The concept of compensatory growth can be applied to forest productivity enhancement through overcompensation, by taking advantage of theories and methods developed in other compensatory growth research. Modeling technology provides an alternative approach in elucidating the mechanisms of overcompensation, which could reveal whether the Shawnigan Lake case could be generalized to other tree species and regions. A new mitigation strategy for dealing with issues related to wood supply shortage could be formed through searching for and creating conditions promoting overcompensation. A forest growth model that is state dependent could provide a way of investigating the effect of partial harvest on forest growth trajectories and stand dynamics. Results from such a study could provide cost-effective decision support tools to practitioners.