Human-Induced Edge Influence On Vegetation In Boreonemoral Forests

• Main Author: Straupe, Inga
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Morressier 2017
• Subjects: Fennoscandian
• Online Access: https://openresearchlibrary.org/viewer/cf4f563a-df25-4ec7-9c7b-3e74833679fb; https://openresearchlibrary.org/ext/api/media/cf4f563a-df25-4ec7-9c7b-3e74833679fb/assets/external_content.pdf; https://doi.org/10.26226/morressier.5d5fdb2fea7c83e515cbfc71

For forest management it is prominent to understand the regeneration dynamics in post-harvesting areas, especially, in places adjacent to protected habitat types in production forest areas. We studied temporal response on vegetation changes in Fennoscandian black alder swamp woods in boreo-nemoral forests in terms of influence of edge after post-harvesting in adjacent forest stands. Forest edges have been well studied in nemoral and tropical forests, but less is known about the vegetation response toward human-induced edges in boreo-nemoral and boreal forests. We surveyed data on forest vegetation at protected habitats in black alder swamp woods adjacent to edges in a different age chronosequence (<10, 20-40 and u226541 years post harvesting) was used to test how dynamics of edge effects changes during the time. We tested this by setting permanent sample plots from forest stand edge to interior, then vegetation survey at set distances from stand edge. What is the distance of edge influence on vegetation more than 41 years after harvesting in adjacent forest stands on black alder swamp woods? How do these edges influences the unmanaged black alder swamp woods adjacent to recent cut edges <10 years and 20-40 years after harvesting? The main results shown that even more than 41 years after harvesting the magnitude of edge influence persists on herbaceous layer and rare epiphytic lichen species. This result highlight the need to consider edge effects in sustainable forest principles for set-asides where nature conservation has been prioritized.