Changes of forest fire regime and landscape pattern under different harvesting modes in a boreal forest of Northeast China

Forest management such as timber harvesting shapes fire regimes and landscape patterns, and these patterns often differ significantly from those under natural disturbances. Our objective was to examine the effects of timber harvesting modes on fire regimes and landscape patterns in a boreal forest of Northeast China. We used a spatially explicit landscape model, LANDIS, to simulate the changes of forest landscape in the Huzhong forest region of the Great Khingan Mountains under no-cutting, clear-cutting, gradual-cutting and selective-cutting modes. Results showed that：（1） the fine fuel loadings generally decreased while the coarse fuel loadings increased with the increase of timber harvesting intensity;（2） the potential burn area significantly varied among different cutting modes, but the potential fire frequency had no obvious difference. Moreover, timber harvesting generally increased the potential fire risk;（3） clear-cutting mode significantly decreased the mean patch size and the aggregation of larch forests and increased the mean patch size and the aggregation of white birch forests. Therefore, clear-cutting mode should be abandoned, and selective-cutting mode be recommended for the sustainable forest management in the Great Khingan Mountains.