Natural dynamics of temperate mountain beech-dominated primary forests in Central Europe

Frankovič, Michal; Janda, Pavel; Mikoláš, Martin; Čada, Vojtěch; Kozak, D. B.; Pettit, Joseph L.; Nagel, Thomas A.; Buechling, Arne; Matula, Radim; Trotsiuk, Volodymyr; Gloor, Rhiannon; Dušátko, Martin; Vostarek, Ondřej; Lábusová, Jana; Ujházy, Karol; Synek, Michal; Begović, Krešimír; Ferenčík, Matej; Svoboda, Miroslav

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118522

Cited by 31 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…There was a higher probability of finding old trees on plots with a lower maximum severity of plot-level disturbance, or where the maximum severity event occurred further back in time. These findings are not at all surprising given that both the beech-and spruce-dominated primary forests studied here experience a disturbance regime characterized by relatively frequent moderate-severity, partial canopy disturbances that are likely to remove susceptible individuals (i.e., large, old trees) in the canopy layer (Nagel et al, 2014;Čada et al, 2020;Frankovič et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Radial growth patterns of increment cores were analyzed for evidence of past disturbance events within each plot. Quantitative reconstructions of disturbance histories for different regions of the larger data set used here have been published previously (Standovár & Kenderes, 2003;Svoboda et al, 2014;Trotsiuk et al, 2014;Janda et al, 2017;Meigs et al, 2017;Nagel et al, 2017;Schurman et al, 2018;Janda et al, 2019;Schurman, Babst, Björklund, et al, 2019;Čada et al, 2020;Frankovič et al, 2020), and provide detailed descriptions of dendroecological methods. We therefore only briefly summarize the methods used to reconstruct disturbance below.…”

Section: For Spruce)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although these exceptionally old trees are rare, 26 out of the 68 stands had more than 10 trees ha −1 that reached the species-specific 90th percentile age. Moreover, the remarkable variation in the density of these trees across the stands likely highlights how tree longevity is strongly influenced by local disturbance histories, which cover a gradient from low-intensity gap dynamics, to partial canopy disturbance, to severe stand replacement in the study region (Svoboda et al, 2014;Trotsiuk et al, 2014;Janda et al, 2017;Schurman et al, 2018;Čada et al, 2020;Frankovič et al, 2020).…”

Section: Journal Of Vegetation Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Disturbance history is a key driver of tree life span in temperate primary forests

Pavlin

Nagel

Svitok

et al. 2021

J Vegetation Science

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Aims: We examined differences in life span among the dominant tree species (spruce, Picea abies; fir, Abies alba; beech, Fagus sylvatica; and maple, Acer pseudoplatanus) across primary mountain forests of Europe. We asked how disturbance history, lifetime growth patterns, and environmental factors influence life span.Locations: Balkan Mountains, Carpathian Mountains, Dinaric Mountains. Methods:Annual ring widths from 20,600 cores from primary forests were used to estimate tree life spans, growth trends, and disturbance history metrics. Mixed models were used to examine species-specific differences in life span (i.e., defined as species-specific 90th percentiles of age distributions), and how metrics of radialThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: For Spruce)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Journal Of Vegetation Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Disturbance history is a key driver of tree life span in temperate primary forests

Pavlin

Nagel

Svitok

et al. 2021

J Vegetation Science

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“…We compiled data from, (1) long‐term studies of primary and old‐growth forests (please refer to Sabatini et al, 2018 for definitions), (2) dendrochronological studies, and (3) other studies defining the ranges of variability in disturbance dynamics for the four forest categories (Appendix S3, Table 2). To define the attributes of natural disturbances at landscape scale, the experts used information from studies investigating many of the largest and most intact old‐growth forests remaining in Europe, including Perućica forest reserve in Bosnia‐Herzegovina (Nagel et al, 2014), primary forests in northern Finland (Aakala, 2018), unmanaged boreal forests in Fennoskandinavia including Russian Karelia (Kuuluvainen & Aakala, 2011), old‐growth forests of the Carpathians (Keeton et al 2010, Čada et al, 2020; Frankovič et al, 2021), the Parangalitsa Reserve in Bulgaria (Panayotov et al, 2011), and forest reserves in the European Russia (Aakala et al, 2011; Ryzhkova et al, 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural disturbance regimes as a guide for sustainable forest management in Europe

Aszalós

Thom

Aakala

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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In Europe, forest management has controlled forest dynamics to sustain commodity production over multiple centuries. Yet over-regulation for growth and yield diminishes resilience to environmental stress as well as threatens biodiversity, leading to increasing forest susceptibility to an array of disturbances. These trends have stimulated interest in alternative management systems, including natural dynamics silviculture (NDS). NDS aims to emulate natural disturbance dynamics at stand and landscape scales through silvicultural manipulations of forest structure and landscape patterns. We adapted a "Comparability Index" (CI) to assess convergence/divergence between natural disturbances and forest management effects. We extended the original CI concept based on disturbance size and frequency by adding the residual structure of canopy trees after a disturbance as a third dimension. We populated the model by compiling data on natural disturbance dynamics and management from 13 countries in Europe, covering four major forest types (i.e., spruce, beech, oak, and pine-dominated forests). We found that natural disturbances are highly variable in size, frequency, and residual structure, but European forest management fails to encompass this complexity. Silviculture in Europe is skewed toward even-aged systems, used predominately (72.9% of management) across the countries assessed. The residual structure proved crucial in the comparison of natural disturbances and silvicultural systems. CI indicated the highest congruence between uneven-aged silvicultural systems and key natural disturbance attributes. Even so, uneven-aged practices emulated only a portion of the complexity associated with natural disturbance effects. The remaining silvicultural systems perform poorly in terms of retention compared to tree survivorship after natural disturbances. We suggest that NDS can enrich Europe's portfolio of management systems, for example where wood production is not the primary objective. NDS is especially relevant to forests managed for habitat quality, risk reduction, and a variety of ecosystem services. We suggest a holistic approach integrating NDS with more conventional practices.

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“…As a result, different types of definitions were proposed across the United States and beyond. Wirth et al, 2009;Frankovič et al, 2021) • Time since the last stand-replacing natural disturbance exceeds the maximum longevity of the dominant tree species (Mosseler et al, 2003) • Forests that developed in a lack/absence of human disturbance (Er and Innes, 2003;Helms, 2004;Nagel et al, 2013;Barton and Keeton, 2018).…”

Section: Key Messagementioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting old-growth forests in Europe - a review of scientific evidence to inform policy implementation

O’Brien¹,

Schuck²,

Fraccaroli³

et al. 2021

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CH 1 | Objectives and methodological approach 13 CH 5 | Associated benefits, consequences, and potential trade-offs of old-growth forest protection and development of old-growth forest attributes 71Key Messages:• Biodiversity conservation in integrative forest management systems can bring multiple ecological benefits, as well as benefits to the forest manager/owner and society, but can also carry opportunity costs for the landowner.

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Natural dynamics of temperate mountain beech-dominated primary forests in Central Europe

Cited by 31 publications

References 56 publications

Disturbance history is a key driver of tree life span in temperate primary forests

Disturbance history is a key driver of tree life span in temperate primary forests

Natural disturbance regimes as a guide for sustainable forest management in Europe

Protecting old-growth forests in Europe - a review of scientific evidence to inform policy implementation

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