Forest Interior

Comprehensive map of forest-interior areas for the Rensselaer Plateau using an average concept of forest-interior habitat, especially focusing on regionally-important examples. Forest-interior habitat is among the places of the highest ecological integrity within a region, especially for terrestrial biodiversity features. A forest-interior area is roughly defined as an area of essentially 100% natural climax/disclimax communities, ideally mostly forest, that is both essentially exclusively comprised of an assemblage of native forest plants and animals and sufficiently buffered from significant cultural impacts. This datalayer is for one of 5 forest-interior models, representing a Moderate Model that simulates commonly-used concepts of forest-interior areas, thus applying intermediate buffer size plus disturbance type and size thresholds to qualify as forest-interior disturbances. The full set of regionally-important Moderate Model forest-interior areas across the plateau is thought to be necessary to sustain the integrity of the region as a forest landscape, specifically contributing to the support and continuity of common forest biodiversity and large-scale forest processes. The derivation of regionally-important forest-interior areas for the plateau represents one of two parts of a forest integrity model for the region that also includes associated forest corridors which connect forest-interior areas across the plateau landscape, forming an essentially contiguous regional network of forests that provides key characteristics of forest landscapes such as high ecological integrity, ecological resilience, plus important habitat and travel routes for resident native forest biota. This network is especially important for viable populations of denning large mammals and nesting forest birds, both of which are currently present on the plateau and modelled to require about 5,000 to 120,000 acres of suitable habitat.