Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Maine
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

To determine the extent of published research conducted in northeastern North America that examines the responses of wildlife (birds, mammals, amphibians, invertebrates, fish, reptiles) to riparian forest harvest, we searched 18 online databases with approximately 20 combinations of the following search words: riparian, forest, wildlife, invertebrates, stream, birds, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, biodiversity, buffer, management, insect, policy, exotic, hyporeos, groundwater, watershed, aquatic. The searches included literature published during 1967-June 2000, although not all databases indexed publications from the entire interval. Reference lists published in approximately 20 recent riparian ecology books also were compiled. Several thousand citations were reviewed, and databases were developed in EndNote citation management software. We retrieved few citations (78) of publications addressing effects of specific forest harvest manipulations on New England riparian wildlife. Most of the riparian biota research in this region has examined bird responses to riparian forest manipulations (primarily buffer width), whereas reptiles and amphibians are the least represented of the surveyed taxonomic groups. Few studies address specific forest manipulations; most are general discussions of streamside forest disturbance. Birds have received more study of effects of changes in buffer widths, whereas studies of invertebrates concentrate on streamside, clear-cutting effects. The review has been summarized in a Cooperative Forestry Research Note and final report.