Old-growth stands stack canopy layers that young plantations lack
True old-growth structure is more than big trunks: staggered ages, deep crowns, snags, and downed logs create multiple canopy strata from emergent tops to shrub and herb layers.
Even-aged plantations often hold one height class and little dead wood, so birds, lichens, and mammals that need vertical complexity find fewer niches. Carbon and microclimates differ too.
Old growth is architecture. Conserving it means keeping the layered stage on which forest biodiversity performs — not only counting board feet of timber.
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