Interactive effects of past land use and recent forest management on the understorey community in temperate oak forests in South Sweden

Abstract

Questions Past agricultural land use and forest management have shaped and influenced the understorey composition in European forests for centuries. We investigated whether understorey vegetation assemblages are affected by (a) legacies from a historical infield/outland agricultural system (i.e., a system with nutrient‐enriched vs nutrient‐depleted areas), (b) recent management intensity (i.e., thinning/felling activities), and (c) the interaction of recent management and potential legacies. Location Oak forests in Skåne, south Sweden. Methods We use three vegetation surveys (1983, 1993/94 and 2014) and notes on management and land‐use history, available for 62 permanent 500 m² plots. We conducted linear mixed effect modelling to detect both main and interactive effects of past land use and recent management on understorey diversity measures and vegetation indicator values for light and fertility. We combined nonmetric multidimensional scaling with permutational multivariate analysis of variance and indicator species analysis to detect compositional differences caused by past land use and/or recent management. Results Understorey diversity was mainly affected by management activities, but the former infield/outland agricultural system was an important determinant of understorey composition. Understorey composition of former infields reflected higher nutrient availability and lower light availability compared to former outland. Past land use and recent management had interactive effects on light‐related understorey variables: for the less intensively managed plots, the outland plots contained more light‐demanding species than the infield plots, while for the more intensively managed plots, the light‐demanding signature of the understorey was similar for infield and outland plots. Conclusions Different intensities of past land use as well as recent forest management influenced the composition of the forest understorey, and interactions were present. Therefore, careful consideration of both the long‐term land‐use history and the more recent disturbances due to forest management are necessary when making future predictions of understorey composition and diversity.

Effects of Disturbance on Understory Vegetation across Slovenian Forest Ecosystems

“…Apart from quantified natural and anthropogenic disturbance effects, a variety of other processes could be directly or indirectly driving these diversity changes at different scales. Local and regional scale drivers, such as ungulate browsing damage [58] and legacies of past land use [59], have been shown to be responsible for detectable changes in understory composition over time [60]. Additionally, environmental factors and disturbance agents operating on larger spatial and longer temporal scales, including large-scale climate change and atmospheric nutrient deposition [7,10] could contribute to plant community dynamics.…”

Biological Flora of the British Isles:Poa nemoralis

“…Here it grows with species such as Anemone nemorosa, Lathyrus vernus, Mercurialis perennis, Milium effusum and Polygonatum multiflorum. Some of these woodlands were formerly wooded meadows used for grazing or mowing that formed part of medieval infield systems (Depauw et al, 2019). Occasionally, P. nemoralis can occur in boreal herb-rich woodlands (groves), which are more open woodland types, partly due to former slash and burn cultivation (Hokkanen, 2003).…”

Evaluating structural and compositional canopy characteristics to predict the light‐demand signature of the forest understorey in mixed, semi‐natural temperate forests

“…In a multifactor experiment on herbaceous communities, Blondeel et al (2020) found that light, rather than global‐change drivers (nitrogen deposition and warming) or past land use, determined development trajectories of forest understorey communities over a period of three years. In a resurvey study in temperate oak forests in South Sweden, Depauw et al (2019b) concluded that light dynamics due to management practices play a key role in the development of the understorey composition.…”