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  • Natural dynamics of temperate mountain beech-dominated primary forests in Central Europe [Elektronski vir]
    Janda, Pavel ...
    temporal extent of disturbance regimes is critical for understanding forest dynamics, forest structural heterogeneity, and biodiversity habitats. Quantifying disturbance regimes is therefore ... imperative for appropriate management of forests and protected areas. However, natural disturbance regimes have rarely been assessed using dendrochronological methods on a regional scale across primary mixed beech-fir forest stands - one of the dominant forest vegetation types in Europe. To study the natural disturbance regimes of beech-dominated mixed-forest stands, we established 42 permanent study plots with an area of 0.1 ha across three primary forest stands in the Western Carpathians, a region that still contains large areas of primary forest. We reconstructed each stand-level disturbance history using a tree-ring based approach. The temporal synchronicity of disturbance events was then evaluated by delineating stand-level disturbance events using a kernel density function, and through the detection of plot-level disturbances with severities greater than 10 percent. The results obtained from the chronologies showed substantial variability in time and space, especially in the mid-19th century. Lowand moderate-severity plot-level disturbance events were most common, but high- and extremely high-severity plot-level disturbance events also occurred. The observed spatial and temporal variability suggests that the beech-dominated forests were primarily driven by mixed-severity disturbance regimes, with windstorms as the main disturbance agent. This reconstruction of the disturbance regime provided unique insight into the scale of mortality processes in these beech-dominated mixed forests. This information can help guide ecological forestry in areas where both wood production and biodiversity preservation are simultaneous goals, such as by employing more spatiotemporally- complex silvicultural systems that resemble natural disturbance patterns and facilitate heterogeneous forest structures.
    Source: Forest Ecology and Management [Elektronski vir]. - ISSN 1872-7042 (Vol. 479, article 118522, 2021, 11 str.)
    Type of material - e-article
    Publish date - 2021
    Language - english
    COBISS.SI-ID - 32985859

    Link(s):

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118522
    DOI

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