Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes
The natural and old-growth forests and their associated biodiversity continues to fade worldwide due to anthropogenic impact in various forms. The boreal forests in Fennoscandia have been subject to intensive clearfelling forestry since the middle of twentieth century. As a result, only a fraction o...
Published in: | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730/full |
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crfrontiers:10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 2024-09-15T18:06:01+00:00 Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes Mikusiński, Grzegorz Orlikowska, Ewa H. Bubnicki, Jakub W. Jonsson, Bengt Gunnar Svensson, Johan Naturvårdsverket 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730/full unknown Frontiers Media SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution volume 8 ISSN 2296-701X journal-article 2021 crfrontiers https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 2024-07-16T04:03:56Z The natural and old-growth forests and their associated biodiversity continues to fade worldwide due to anthropogenic impact in various forms. The boreal forests in Fennoscandia have been subject to intensive clearfelling forestry since the middle of twentieth century. As a result, only a fraction of forests with long temporal continuity remains at the landscape level. In Sweden, some of these primary forests have been formally protected, whereas other forests with known high conservation values are not. Collectively, both protected and not protected known valuable primary forests are included in a nationally delineated network of high conservation value forests (HCVF). In addition to HCVF, older forests that have not been clearfelled since the mid-1900s, i.e., “proxy continuity forests,” have recently been mapped across the entire boreal biome in Sweden. In this paper, we analyze how these proxy continuity forests may strengthen the HCVF network from a green infrastructure perspective. First, we evaluate the spatial overlap between proxy continuity forests and HCVF. Second, we perform a large-scale connectivity analysis, in which we show that adding proxy continuity forests located outside HCVF strongly increases the structural connectivity of the network of protected forests. Finally, by assessing habitat suitability for virtual species specialized in pine, spruce, and broadleaf forests, we find large regional differences in the ability to secure habitat and thereby functional green infrastructure by considering currently unprotected primary forest. We show that, by adding those forests to the network, the area of habitat for low-demanding species dependent on spruce or pine forests can be largely increased. For high-demanding species, additional habitat restoration in the landscape matrix is needed. By contrast, even counting all valuable broadleaf forests available is not enough to provide a suitable habitat for their associated species, which indicates a large need for landscape-scale habitat restoration ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Fennoscandia Frontiers (Publisher) Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8 |
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The natural and old-growth forests and their associated biodiversity continues to fade worldwide due to anthropogenic impact in various forms. The boreal forests in Fennoscandia have been subject to intensive clearfelling forestry since the middle of twentieth century. As a result, only a fraction of forests with long temporal continuity remains at the landscape level. In Sweden, some of these primary forests have been formally protected, whereas other forests with known high conservation values are not. Collectively, both protected and not protected known valuable primary forests are included in a nationally delineated network of high conservation value forests (HCVF). In addition to HCVF, older forests that have not been clearfelled since the mid-1900s, i.e., “proxy continuity forests,” have recently been mapped across the entire boreal biome in Sweden. In this paper, we analyze how these proxy continuity forests may strengthen the HCVF network from a green infrastructure perspective. First, we evaluate the spatial overlap between proxy continuity forests and HCVF. Second, we perform a large-scale connectivity analysis, in which we show that adding proxy continuity forests located outside HCVF strongly increases the structural connectivity of the network of protected forests. Finally, by assessing habitat suitability for virtual species specialized in pine, spruce, and broadleaf forests, we find large regional differences in the ability to secure habitat and thereby functional green infrastructure by considering currently unprotected primary forest. We show that, by adding those forests to the network, the area of habitat for low-demanding species dependent on spruce or pine forests can be largely increased. For high-demanding species, additional habitat restoration in the landscape matrix is needed. By contrast, even counting all valuable broadleaf forests available is not enough to provide a suitable habitat for their associated species, which indicates a large need for landscape-scale habitat restoration ... |
author2 |
Naturvårdsverket |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mikusiński, Grzegorz Orlikowska, Ewa H. Bubnicki, Jakub W. Jonsson, Bengt Gunnar Svensson, Johan |
spellingShingle |
Mikusiński, Grzegorz Orlikowska, Ewa H. Bubnicki, Jakub W. Jonsson, Bengt Gunnar Svensson, Johan Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
author_facet |
Mikusiński, Grzegorz Orlikowska, Ewa H. Bubnicki, Jakub W. Jonsson, Bengt Gunnar Svensson, Johan |
author_sort |
Mikusiński, Grzegorz |
title |
Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
title_short |
Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
title_full |
Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
title_fullStr |
Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Strengthening the Network of High Conservation Value Forests in Boreal Landscapes |
title_sort |
strengthening the network of high conservation value forests in boreal landscapes |
publisher |
Frontiers Media SA |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730/full |
genre |
Fennoscandia |
genre_facet |
Fennoscandia |
op_source |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution volume 8 ISSN 2296-701X |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.595730 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
8 |
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1810443517343825920 |