Search results for "Forestry"

Disentangling the latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in community composition induced by climate change: The case of riparian birds

2021

11 pages; International audience; Aim: This study investigates whether, and how, the composition of riparian bird communities has been affected by climate warming and habitat change. Although these two forces act separately, their respective contributions are rarely examined. Moreover, while the response of a given community may be a function of latitude and altitude, most studies have focused on these gradients separately. Riparian ecosystems are an opportunity to investigate community change along latitudinal and elevational gradients.Location: France, three major rivers (the Doubs, the Allier and the Loire)Taxon: Birds.Methods: Drawing upon bird community monitoring data over a period of…

Woodland key habitats in preserving polypore diversity in boreal forests: Effects of patch size, stand structure and microclimate

2016

Abstract Woodland key-habitats (WKHs) are set-asides in managed forests that are conceived to maintain specific aspects of forest biodiversity and they are widely used in Northern European countries. WKHs are often quite small (from 0.1 to a few hectares) and thus it is unclear if they can maintain biodiversity. We studied the effects of WKH size, microclimate and forest structure on species richness and composition of polypores, a group of wood-decaying fungi that has become threatened due to clear-cut forestry. The WKHs studied varied in size between 0.05 and 3.6 ha, and the control forests from 6.5 to 44.7 ha. Patch size and the volumes of logs and standing dead trees significantly affec…

Do small protected habitat patches within boreal production forests provide value for biodiversity conservation? : A systematic review protocol

2019

Background Forest harvesting is the main driver of habitat degradation and biodiversity loss in forests of the boreal zone. To mitigate harmful effects, small-scale habitats with high biodiversity values have been protected within production forests. These include woodland key habitats, and other small-scale habitat patches protected by voluntary conservation action. This article describes a protocol for a systematic review to synthesize the value of small habitat patches left within production landscapes for biodiversity. The topic for this systematic review arose from a discussion with the Finnish forestry sector and was further defined in a stakeholder workshop. Research question: Do sma…

Forest multifunctionality is not resilient to intensive forestry

2021

AbstractThere is ample evidence that intensive management of ecosystems causes declines in biodiversity as well as in multiple ecosystem services, i.e., in multifunctionality. However, less is known about the permanence and reversibility of these responses. To gain insight into whether multifunctionality can be sustained under intensive management, we developed a framework building on the concept of resilience: a system’s ability to avoid displacement and to return or transform to a desired state. We applied it to test the ability of forest multifunctionality to persist during and recover from intensive management for timber production in a boreal forest. Using forest growth simulations and…

The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside polypore communities

2020

Preserving streamside forest habitats or buffer strips is considered to reduce forestry-related biodiversity loss in commercial forest landscapes. However, it is still unclear what type of management in and near streamside forests can be undertaken without compromising their biodiversity and natural change through succession. Using a before–after, control–impact study design, we tested the impacts of forested buffer strips (15 or 30 m wide, with or without selective logging), preserved after clear-cutting, on the changes of polypore communities in streamside boreal forests in Finland. Manipulations in 28 sites produced four treatment classes, the community compositions of which were compar…

Managing boreal forests for the simultaneous production of collectable goods and timber revenues

2016

Timber Production is an economically important provisioning ecosystem service in forests, but is often in conflict with the provision of other ecosystem services. In multifunctional forestry, the production of timber and non-timber ecosystem services should coexist in the same landscape. To this end, we explored the capacity of a boreal landscape to simultaneously produce collectable goods − bilberry (Vaccimium myrtillus L.), cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) and cep (Boletus edulis Bull.) − alongside timber revenues. We also identified optimal forest management plans to achieve this. Furthermore, we analyzed trade-offs between collectable good yields and timber production, as well as bet…

Changes in evapotranspiration and phenology as consequences of shrub removal in dry forests of central Argentina

2014

More than half of the dry woodlands (forests and shrublands) of the world are in South America, mainly in Brazil and Argentina, where in the last years intense land use changes have occurred. This study evaluated how the transition from woody-dominated to grass-dominated system affected key ecohydrological variables and biophysical processes over 20 000 ha of dry forest in central Argentina. We used a simplified surface energy balance model together with moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer–normalized difference vegetation index data to analyse changes in above primary productivity, phenology, actual evapotranspiration, albedo and land surface temperature for four complete growing …

Comment on “A simple way to incorporate uncertainty and risk into forest harvest scheduling”

2017

In a recent research article, Robinson et al. (2016) described a method of estimating uncertainty of harvesting outcomes by analyzing the historical yield to the associated prediction for a large number of harvest operations. We agree with this analysis, and consider it a useful tool to integrate estimates of uncertainty into the optimization process. The authors attempt to manage the risk using two different methods, based on deterministic integer linear programming. The first method focused on maximizing the 10th quantile of the distribution of predicted volume subject to area constraint, while the second method focused on minimizing the variation of total quantity of volume harvested sub…

2021

Climate change is having a serious impact on many ecosystems. In the summer of 2018 and 2019, around two thirds of European beech trees were damaged or killed by extreme drought. It is critical to keep these beech woods healthy, as they are central to the survival of over 6,000 other species of animals and plants. The level of damage caused by the drought varied between forests. However, not all the trees in each forest responded in the same way, with severely damaged trees often sitting next to fully healthy ones. This suggests that the genetic make-up of each tree determines how well it can adapt to drought rather than its local environment. To investigate this further, Pfenninger et al. …

Olive Growing in a Time of Change: From Empiricism to Genomics

2016

Since its beginning, the olive crop has been a long-lived agricultural system in the Mediterranean Basin being well adapted to this area. Traditional olive growing, still prevalent in most producing areas, is characterized by low tree density and rainfed orchards with low yield and manually harvested. The traditional olive growing technology is local, diverse, and empirically based. New high density, irrigated, and mechanically harvested orchards has been progressively planted since the end of World War II. These plantations produce high crops at low costs, but they reduce the diversity of cultivars, increase the demand of inputs and the risk of environment unbalances. The expansion and int…