Climate Change Data Portal
DOI | 10.1016/j.foreco.2024.121816 |
Are uneven-aged forests in Central Europe less affected by natural disturbances than even-aged forests? | |
Mohr, Johannes; Thom, Dominik; Hasenauer, Hubert; Seidl, Rupert | |
发表日期 | 2024 |
ISSN | 0378-1127 |
EISSN | 1872-7042 |
起始页码 | 559 |
卷号 | 559 |
英文摘要 | Natural disturbances from wind and bark beetles have increased strongly in recent decades across Central Europe. As climate change will likely amplify disturbance activity further, disturbances are increasingly threatening the sustainable supply of ecosystem services to society. Management strategies to mitigate disturbances are thus urgently needed. In Central Europe, managing for complex, uneven-aged forests has been suggested as a measure to reduce disturbance risk. However, the scientific evidence for a dampening effect of uneven-aged management on disturbances remains weak and inconclusive. Here, our objective was to assess differences in the disturbance regimes of uneven-aged and even-aged conifer forests during the years 1986 to 2020. We used remote sensing to quantify wind and bark beetle disturbances across four study sites in Austria. The sites span a large environmental gradient and have been under uneven-aged management for many decades. Here, we contrast them with surrounding even-aged forests with similar environmental conditions (uneven-aged forests: 13,440 ha, even-aged forests: 27,910 ha). Specifically, we used a paired-landscape approach, matching uneven-aged with even-aged forests at the level of sublandscapes and controlling for differences in elevation, slope, exposition, topography and the proportion of coniferous species. For each pair of sublandscapes (n= 5000) we quantified differences in disturbance rate, frequency, size and severity between uneven-aged and even-aged forests. Our findings revealed that in uneven-aged forests, disturbance rates were on average 31.3% lower, disturbances returned with a 36.3% lower frequency, and maximum patch sizes were 15.7% smaller than in surrounding even-aged forests. The proportion of high severity disturbance patches was only marginally influenced, being 3.8% lower in uneven-aged versus even-aged forests. Topography strongly modulated the effect of management on disturbance regimes. While disturbance rate was lower in uneven-aged forests overall, it exceeded the rate of surrounding even-aged forests on steep slopes >20(degrees) and elevations >1500 m asl. In conclusion, our results suggest that uneven-aged management may partly counteract increases in natural disturbances in Central European forests. However, we also caution that uneven-aged management is not a silver bullet solution for managing forest change, and highlight that adapted forest management approaches should be tailored to local needs and conditions. |
英文关键词 | Bark beetles; Plenter forests; Selection forest; Silviculture; Structural complexity; Wind |
语种 | 英语 |
WOS研究方向 | Forestry |
WOS类目 | Forestry |
WOS记录号 | WOS:001211008100001 |
来源期刊 | FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
![]() |
文献类型 | 期刊论文 |
条目标识符 | http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/305862 |
作者单位 | Technical University of Munich; University of Vermont; BOKU University |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Mohr, Johannes,Thom, Dominik,Hasenauer, Hubert,et al. Are uneven-aged forests in Central Europe less affected by natural disturbances than even-aged forests?[J],2024,559. |
APA | Mohr, Johannes,Thom, Dominik,Hasenauer, Hubert,&Seidl, Rupert.(2024).Are uneven-aged forests in Central Europe less affected by natural disturbances than even-aged forests?.FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,559. |
MLA | Mohr, Johannes,et al."Are uneven-aged forests in Central Europe less affected by natural disturbances than even-aged forests?".FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 559(2024). |
条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 |
除非特别说明,本系统中所有内容都受版权保护,并保留所有权利。