Pristine Forest Landscapes as Ecological References – Human

• Main Authors: Torbjörn Josefsson, Ecosystem Change, Boreal Fennosc
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.630.1874; http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/2145/1/Thesis_summary.pdf

Northern boreal forests that display no signs of forestry or agriculture in the past are often regarded as intact, pristine forests. Yet, humans have inhabited these environments for millennia and developed a variety of economic strategies for their subsistence. Generally, these forms of land use have been regarded as minor disturbances, and have thus frequently been neglected in ecological studies. Despite the increased recognition of the importance of past land use in other forest landscapes, the land use effects in northerly remote forests remain unclear. In this thesis the influence of human land use on forest structure, composition and biodiversity (dead wood and wood-inhabiting fungi) during the last 1 000 years was studied in three Scots pine forests in northern Sweden. For this purpose I used an interdisciplinary approach, combining field studies on present forest characteristics with long-term records such as archaeological remains and biological archives, and short-term records such as historical documents. My results show that long-term, low-intensity land use can substantially