Abstract
Considerable areas of broadleaved stands have been established during the past two decades in Europe, both on former arable fields and on former conifer sites. A warmer climate may also lead to suitable conditions for broadleaves establishment at higher latitudes than today. A central question for broadleaved forest restoration as a response to changed land use and/or climate change is whether the forest flora is able to colonize new sites in the modern, fragmented cultural landscape? If so, how long will it take, and what factors influence plant colonization? Recent research has pointed at the discrepancy between low realized migration rates at local scale during secondary succession and regional/continental scale after the latest glaciation. A combination of small stand size and relatively high recent woodland age implied that the migration front of many species already had passed the entire stand at the time of the study. The large broadleaved plantations established in the south Swedish province of Skåne between 1990 and 1995 now offer a unique opportunity to study migration rates for a considerably higher number of forest plants than previously. The main purpose of this project is to rank forest plants according to their colonizing ability in contiguous and fragmented forest landscapes and to analyse the factors that control early forest plant colonization. The project also aims to establish a baseline for future long-term monitoring of the colonization process.
Sweden