Rämeiden ojituksen ja ennallistamisen vaikutukset elinympäristön rakenteeseen, kasvillisuuteen ja muurahaisiin

Ongelmakohtia kuolleen puun ylläpidossa nykyisissä metsäekosysteemeissä

Rapid recovery of invertebrate communities after ecological restoration of boreal mires

Mire degradation due to drainage for forestry results in the loss of mire specialist species. To halt the loss in biodiversity, ecological restoration is needed and already implemented. However, a major challenge in ecological restoration is whether actions taken have the desired outcome. Key abiotic and biotic conditions for the successful restoration of invertebrate communities can be identified by testing the “Field of Dreams” hypothesis, which postulates that if a habitat is successfully restored, species will return. This study was conducted in nine boreal mires located in Eastern Finland, 1–3 years after restoration. Parts of each mire were drained for forestry during the 1960s and 19…

Specialist butterflies benefit most from the ecological restoration of mires

Abstract Anthropogenic disturbances cause biotic homogenization through the replacement of specialist species with generalists. Restoration has the potential to counteract these negative effects. Recently, restoration in the peatlands of Northern Europe has started to show positive effects on biodiversity. However, seldom have studies evaluated the response of insects to restoration by comparing populations prior to restoration to those thereafter with a Before-After Control-Impact (BACI) design. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the restoration actions taken were appropriate to facilitate the successful recolonization of mire butterflies and plants. We found that, generally, dr…

Elinympäristöjen tilan edistäminen Suomessa : ELITE-työryhmän mietintö elinympäristöjen tilan edistämisen priorisointisuunnitelmaksi ja arvio suunnitelman kokonaiskustannuksista

Kestävä luonnonvarojen käyttö on perusta sekä ihmisen että luonnon hyvinvoinnille. Tähän mietintöön on koottu Elinympäristöjen tilan edistämisen (ELITE) työryhmän työn tulokset. Työ edistää osaltaan luonnonvarojen käytön kestävyyttä antamalla suuntaviivoja luonnon monimuotoisuuden turvaamiseen Suomen metsissä, soilla, perinnebiotoopeilla, maatalousalueilla, kallioilla, tuntureilla sekä rannikolla. Osin tarkastelussa mukana olivat myös kaupunkiympäristöt ja sisävedet. Varsinaisen tarkastelun ulkopuolelle jätettiin rannikkovesien ulkopuoliset meret. Elinympäristöjen tilan edistämisen toimenpiteet voivat käsittää suojelua, luonnonhoitoa tai perinteisellä tavalla ymmärrettyä ennallistamista. To…

Ekologisia näkökulmia monimuotoisuuden turvaamisessa valtakunnallisesti ja alueellisesti

The effects of drainage and restoration of pine mires on habitat structure, vegetation and ants

Habitat loss and degradation are the main threats to biodiversity worldwide. For example, nearly 80% of peatlands in southern Finland have been drained. There is thus a need to safeguard the remaining pristine mires and to restore degraded ones. Ants play a pivotal role in many ecosystems and like many keystone plant species, shape ecosystem conditions for other biota. The effects of mire restoration and subsequent vegetation succession on ants, however, are poorly understood. We inventoried tree stands, vegetation, water-table level, and ants (with pitfall traps) in nine mires in southern Finland to explore differences in habitats, vegetation and ant assemblages among pristine, drained (30…

Red List of Ecosystems: assessing the quality of boreal forests in Finland

IUCN recently published guidelines for Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) risk assessment [1]. The RLE criteria include consideration of changes in an area and the geographic distribution of ecosystems but also of changes in the biotic and abiotic ecological quality of ecosystems. In widely distributed ecosystems, such as boreal forests in Finland, ecological quality is often more important than the spatial extent of an area in assessing threat status. Therefore, it is important to find quantitative variables that are good surrogates for the overall quality of an ecosystem. In the RLE assessment of Finland, we divided boreal forests into 40 ecosystem types. Of these, forests with mineral soils (1…