Silvicultural regime shapes understory functional structure in European forests

Abstract Managing forests to sustain their diversity and functioning is a major challenge in a changing world. Despite the key role of understory vegetation in driving forest biodiversity, regeneration and functioning, few studies address the functional dimensions of understory vegetation response to silvicultural management. We assessed the influence of the silvicultural regimes on the functional diversity and redundancy of European forest understory. We gathered vascular plant abundance data from more than 2000 plots in European forests, each associated with one out of the five most widespread silvicultural regimes. We used generalized linear mixed models to assess the effect of different silvicultural regimes on understory functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy) and functional redundancy, while accounting for climate and soil conditions, and explored the reciprocal relationship between three diversity components (functional diversity, redundancy and dominance) across silvicultural regimes through a ternary diversity diagram. Intensive silvicultural regimes are associated with a decrease in functional diversity and an increase in functional redundancy, compared with unmanaged conditions. This means that although intensive management may buffer communities' functions against species or functional losses, it also limits the range of understory response to environmental changes. Policy implications . Different silvicultural regimes influence different facets of understory functional features. While unmanaged forests can be used as a reference to design silvicultural practices in compliance with biodiversity conservation targets, different silvicultural options should be balanced at landscape scale to sustain the multiple forest functions that human societies are increasingly demanding.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Applied Ecology
Published
2024-09-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14740
Citations
9
Primary Topic
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.86

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article

Silvicultural regime shapes understory functional structure in European forests

Luc Lens, Vitas Marozas, Sabina Burrascano, Réka Aszalós et al.
9 citations
Journal of Applied Ecology
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
4.86
article

Silvicultural regime shapes understory functional structure in European forests

Luc Lens, Vitas Marozas, Sabina Burrascano, Réka Aszalós, Jan Hošek, Peter Schall, Yann Dumas, Bence Kovács, Kris Verheyen, Gediminas Brazaitis, Fotios Xystrakis, Frédéric Archaux, Francesco Chianucci, Markus Fischer, Yoan Paillet, Flóra Tinya, Irina Goldberg, Frantíšek Máliš, Carlo Ricotta, Inken Doerfler, Péter Ódor, Kris Vandekerkhove, Marco Mina, Jacob Heilmann‐Clausen, Anders Mårell, Inger Kappel Schmidt, Simonetta Bagella, Philippe Janssen, Karol Ujházy, Giovanni Trentanovi, Erik Aude, Jörg C. Müller, Jan Helbach, Carlotta Ferrara, Rasmus Riis‐Hansen, Mariana Ujházyová, Andrea Cutini, Tommaso Sitzia, Francesca Napoleone, Sebastian Kepfer‐Rojas, Lorenzo Balducci, Lina Fusaro, Jeňýk Hofmeister, Björn Nordén, Torben Riis‐Nielsen, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Pallieter De Smedt, János Bölöni, Lionel R. Hertzog, Owen Bradley, Radim Matula, Bruno E. L. Cerabolini
article en
9 citations

Abstract

Abstract Managing forests to sustain their diversity and functioning is a major challenge in a changing world. Despite the key role of understory vegetation in driving forest biodiversity, regeneration and functioning, few studies address the functional dimensions of understory vegetation response to silvicultural management. We assessed the influence of the silvicultural regimes on the functional diversity and redundancy of European forest understory. We gathered vascular plant abundance data from more than 2000 plots in European forests, each associated with one out of the five most widespread silvicultural regimes. We used generalized linear mixed models to assess the effect of different silvicultural regimes on understory functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy) and functional redundancy, while accounting for climate and soil conditions, and explored the reciprocal relationship between three diversity components (functional diversity, redundancy and dominance) across silvicultural regimes through a ternary diversity diagram. Intensive silvicultural regimes are associated with a decrease in functional diversity and an increase in functional redundancy, compared with unmanaged conditions. This means that although intensive management may buffer communities' functions against species or functional losses, it also limits the range of understory response to environmental changes. Policy implications . Different silvicultural regimes influence different facets of understory functional features. While unmanaged forests can be used as a reference to design silvicultural practices in compliance with biodiversity conservation targets, different silvicultural options should be balanced at landscape scale to sustain the multiple forest functions that human societies are increasingly demanding.

Journal of Applied EcologyVol. 61(10)
University of Insubria (IT), University of Bern (CH), University of Copenhagen (DK), Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (DE), Eurac Research (IT), University of Padua (IT), University of Sassari (IT), Vytautas Magnus University (LT), Research Institute for Nature and Forest (BE), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZ), University of Würzburg (DE), Ghent University (BE), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut (DE), Institute of Ecology and Botany (HU), SurgiMedia (France) (FR), Technická univerzita vo Zvolene (SK), Institute of Ecosystem Study (IT), Forestry Research Centre (IT), Ecological Consulting (Czechia) (CZ), HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research (HU), Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NO), Austrian Research Centre for Forests (AT), National Research Council (IT), Technical University of Munich (DE), University of Göttingen (DE), Sapienza University of Rome (IT), Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
European Commission, Agentúra na Podporu Výskumu a Vývoja, Vedecká Grantová Agentúra MŠVVaŠ SR a SAV, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Life in Land
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
4.86
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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