Table 5-5 — Damage types recorded in the 1 996 Pilot Study 



(conks — internal fungal decay) is more signifi- 

 cant than code 03 (open wounds). This rank- 

 ing is developed by insect and disease special- 

 ists who have found that the most serious 

 kinds of damage are those nearest the ground 

 where a tree's main stem is anchored in the 

 soil. When more than a single type of damage 

 is in the same place, the most damaging symp- 

 tom (lowest damage code) is recorded. Dam- 

 age is recorded for up to three locations on one 

 tree. Specific causal agents are not identified 

 in detection-monitoring field assessments but 

 a determining cause is critical in evaluation 

 monitoring (appendix D). 



About 80% of the Pilot 

 Study trees and 75% of Cali- 

 fornia trees had no damage 

 symptoms. The no-damage 

 percentage for California re- 

 serve (national parks, wilder- 

 ness) and drier woodland ar- 

 eas, however, was about 60%. 

 The most common damage 

 symptoms were conks, dead 

 terminal branches, and open 

 wounds, which together repre- 

 sented about 10% of all trees. 

 Conk damage, indicating inte- 

 rior fungal decay in the tree 

 bole and stem, was the great- 

 est single damaging agent 

 both in the Pilot Study and the 1992-95 Cali- 

 fornia plots. The no-damage percentage of 

 about 80% for all trees across all three states 

 was not anticipated because tree species, cli- 

 mate, environments, disease, and insect fac- 

 tors differ so widely from north to south along 

 the Pacific Coast. The lower 60% no-damage 

 value for reserve and woodland land classes 

 in California means that older stands or more 

 stressed environments have a lower no-dam- 

 age baseline. A major deviation from these no- 

 damage baseline values of 60 and 80% will 

 indicate presence of one or more significant 

 stressors. 



FULL-HECTARE TALLY 



The full-hectare (2.47 acre) tally is done only 

 in the Pacific Northwest and in California, at 

 the request of federal and state cooperators 

 who provide additional funding for its imple- 

 mentation. Need for the extra tally arose in 

 summer 1991 when a California pilot plot in a 

 sequoia forest had no recently dead or live large 

 trees in any of the four subplots. Because the 

 overstory of many Northwest forest types has 

 similarly large trees, the concern of California, 

 Oregon, and Washington state cooperators was 

 that subplots would not capture a represen- 

 tative number of large live and dead trees. 

 Thus, protocols were changed so that field 

 crews searched the entire 2.47-acre plot area 

 for both large recent dead trees (>11.0 inches) 



Monitoring — 73 



