Work

Long term effects of forest management on forest structure and dead wood in mature boreal forests

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The history of forestry in Fennoscandia spans five centuries, with clear-cutting being the dominant practice since the mid-20th century. This has led to a significant transformation of the forest landscape. We investigated long-term effects of clear-cutting on forest structure and dead wood volumes. For our study, we established twelve pairs of spruce forest sites in southeastern Norway, each pair constituting of a mature, previously clear-cut stand and its near-natural counterpart with similar edaphic factors. The near-natural stands had 2.8 times higher volumes of dead wood and a larger proportion of dead wood in late stages of decay. Forests with lower volumes of dead wood often also had lower connectivity of old spruce forests, potentially amplifying negative effects on biodiversity. Furthermore, near-natural stands displayed greater tree size heterogeneity, resulting in a wider variation in light conditions. While no difference was observed in living tree volume or basal area, the previously clear-cut stands had a higher stand density with more slender stems and shorter crowns. This study lays the groundwork for future research on how stand-replacing forestry influences biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including carbon cycling and sequestration, and how these processes are interconnected.

Source: Forest Ecology and Management

DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2024.122315