Large‐scale forest corridors to connect the taiga fauna to Fennoscandia

Abstract

Finland and Russian Karelia belong to the same biogeographical entity, lying on the same Precambrian bedrock. During the last half century there has been an enormous ‘natural experiment’, in which forestry in Finland has been very intensive, whereas in Karelia forestry has been negligent leaving large primaeval areas untouched. As a result, Russian forests have a much greater diversity of wildlife. In particular, rare species and species favouring old forests are more abundant in Karelia than in Finland. Typical dominant species in Finland are those characteristic of younger successional stages as well as many vole‐dependent small carnivores. Finland is situated on the eastern margin of a vast coniferous taiga. The future of the taiga fauna in Fennoscandia is dependent on the condition of the taiga forests in Russia and on the connectivity of Fennoscandian forest areas to the intact taiga, i.e. connectivity at the border between Russia and Finland. In this paper, we focus our attention on the narrow isthmus between the White Sea and Lake Onega, which is an extremely important connection for the northern element of the taiga fauna. The capercaillie Tetrao urogallus may be a good focal species, with its large spatial requirements for lek areas depicting the need for connectivity to maintain viable populations. We suggest that large‐scale connections should be planned, ‘forest bridges’ intruding into Finland and even into Sweden, where the proportion of mature forests would be high enough (as much as ⅓ of the total area) to guarantee the connectivity between subpopulations. We argue that this may not necessarily represent additional costs for forestry, provided that actions are taken for a careful large‐scale planning of forest harvesting to satisfy the requirements of these corridors. We believe that large‐scale preservation of ecosystems will be a better strategy in the future than species‐specific conservation programmes for wildlife species.

Monitoring Current Status of and Trends in Boreal Forest Land Use in Russian Karelia

“…The future of some of the elementary components of the taiga in Fennoscandia depends on the condition of the taiga forests in Russia and on the connectivity of the Fennoscandian forest between Russia and Finland (Lindén et al 2000). Given the patterns of harvesting we monitored and the scenarios modeled, we suggest Conservation Ecology 7(2): 8. http://www.consecol.org/vol7/iss2/art8 that, in as little as 50 yr, near-natural forests in the study area will be found only in those areas that have been set aside for conservation.…”

“…Many scientists have called for research in the Russian taiga, where extensive and relatively unmodified forest areas still exist (Syrjänen et al 1994, Uuttera et al 1996, Lindén et al 2000, Yaroshenko et al 2001. The study area is one of several large forest remnants in Fennoscandia along the Finnish border in Russian Karelia.…”

“…Ecological investigations of small areas have been conducted to explore species-level responses to this phenomenon (Hanski and Haila 1987, Niemelä et al 1992, Haila et al 1994, Seppälä and Jouttijärvi 1997. Research on natural disturbance factors, both smallscale disturbances that induce gap formation (Kuuluvainen 1994, Kuuluvainen et al 1998) and large-scale factors such as fire (Parviainen 1996, Ryan 2002, has also been initiated, but broader-scale questions have only begun to be addressed in the same context (Lindén et al 2000). Early examples of this trend include the simulation of natural disturbance factors and processes in forestry by Bergeron et al (2002) and Kuuluvainen (2002).…”

“…Evidence of the ecological significance and fragility of near-natural boreal forest ecosystems is growing, and northern forest managers are facing strong pressure to adopt management practices whose purpose is to preserve natural forest processes and species (Turner et al 1995, Kurki 1997, Lindén et al 2000. Managed boreal forests tend to differ markedly in structure at the landscape level compared with boreal landscapes that have been less modified by humans (Hansson 1992, Syrjänen et al 1994.…”

Wildlife monitoring in Finland: online information for game administration, hunters, and the wider public

“…Studies dealing with population dynamics, factors affecting long-term changes in grouse populations, comparisons with adjacent areas' predator-prey interactions, and biodiversity aspects, as well as wildlife-habitat relationships and landscape ecology, have made fruitful use of the wildlife triangle data (Kurki et al 1998;Lindén et al 2000;Ranta et al 2006;Elmhagen et al 2010;Sirkiä et al 2010;Kojola et al 2014;among others).…”