Quantifying the target state of forest stands managed with the continuous cover approach – revisiting Möller's “Dauerwald” concept after 100 years
16/07/2020
Continuous cover forestry is often considered a management alternative to age-class forestry, in closer compliance with economic as well as societal demands. It is further thought to provide forest stands of high stability and resilience under conditions of climate change. The guiding principle for the stand structure of continuous cover forestry systems is to create managed forest stands that are multi-layered and hence of high structural diversity. Past studies of both these characteristics have been mostly qualitative. Here we used data from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to quantify differences in stand structure between forests managed for decades according to the continuous cover concept and forests managed otherwise. We found that the vertical distribution of plant material in the continuous cover stands was relatively homogeneous and similar to the vertical distribution found in primary European beech forests. We also found that the structural complexity of continuous cover forests was significantly higher than that of even-aged monocultures of Scots pine and Norway spruce. Based on these findings, a scaled index was developed that quantifies structural attributes of TLS point clouds and can significantly distinguish continuous cover forests from even-aged forests. This index may be a useful tool to quantify the difference in structure of a given continuous cover forest stand from a “target structure”, meaning the theoretical structure describing an ideal continuous cover forest.
Retention as an integrated biodiversity conservation approach for continuous-cover forestry in Europe
15/02/2020
Retention forestry implies that biological legacies like dead and living trees are deliberately selected and retained beyond harvesting cycles to benefit biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This model has been applied for several decades in even-aged, clearcutting (CC) systems but less so in uneven-aged, continuous-cover forestry (CCF). We provide an overview of retention in CCF in temperate regions of Europe, currently largely focused on habitat trees and dead wood. The relevance of current meta-analyses and many other studies on retention in CC is limited since they emphasize larger patches in open surroundings. Therefore, we reflect here on the ecological foundations and socio-economic frameworks of retention approaches in CCF, and highlight several areas with development potential for the future. Conclusions from this perspective paper, based on both research and current practice on several continents, although highlighting Europe, are also relevant to other temperate regions of the world using continuous-cover forest management approaches.
Temperate Conservation Harvesting