Abstract
This work analyses the ecological efficiency of restoration in managed Fennoscandian boreal forests. The work comprises a large-scale experiment including 24 forest stands in a standard factorial design. It investigates the importance of (i) fire and (ii) felling of retention trees for the recovery of deadwood-dependent species. The applicant will score biodiversity and analyze the effects of restoration actions. The results will provide guidelines for using fire and tree felling to promote biodiversity at the stand scale. Further, this work involves the development of a landscape model to analyze the effects of various restoration actions at the landscape scale. Extensive Swedish and Finnish data on coarse woody debris (CWD) and the occurrence of wood-fungi both from managed and unmanaged forests and landscapes are utilized. A quantitative landscape model (Q-LAND) is linked to submodels that simulate (a) CWD-dynamics and (b) the dynamics of deadwood-dependent species. The landscape model is subsequently used to analyze: (i) how restoration should be designed to promote the recovery and persistence of deadwood-dependent species at the landscape scale. The model is open to further development that will make it possible to analyze questions connected to biodiversity monitoring and forest carbon sequestration potential. The new Q-LAND simulator will become a practical landscape planning tool for predicting the effects of different scenarios of management and restoration.
Sweden