Comment on “Long-term decline of sugar maple following forest harvest, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire”

Cleavitt et al. (2018) report a lack of sugar maple regeneration in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), Watershed 5 (W5) following whole-tree clear-cut harvesting and purport that harvesting-induced soil calcium depletion contributed to regeneration failure of this species. In New England, clear-cutting is a silvicultural strategy used to promote less tolerant species, especially birch (Marquis 1969; Leak et al. 2014), which is just the outcome the authors report. While this study reports an impressive, long-term data set, given broad interest in sugar maple and sustainability of forest management practices, we feel it is critical to more fully explore the role of nutrition on sugar maple dynamics, both prior to and during the experiment, and to more fully review the scientific record on the role of whole-tree clearcutting in nutrient-induced sugar maple dynamics.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author