The present study introduces an exploratory data analysis based on structural indicators with the aim to assess the effect of silvicultural practices on tree stand structure. The study was carried out in three Italian beech forests of different ages with stand structures that originated from dissimilar regeneration and cultivation techniques (Cansiglio, northern Italy, Chiarano, central Italy, and Mongiana, southern Italy). Ten structural indicators were considered when investigating the latent multivariate relationship between stand structure attributes before and after thinning operations by using a multiway factor analysis (MFA). The MFA results identified the older stand at Cansiglio as more homogeneous for cultivation regimes, and more stable to practices when compared with the younger sites (Chiarano and Mongiana). Heterogeneous stands were sensitive to silvicultural practice thus suggesting their possible impact on forest attributes. The proposed approach proved to be an operational tool to evaluate comprehensively the response of forest structure to planned interventions. © 2018, Northeast Forestry University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

Key message: We provided long-term stand and canopy structural data from permanent monitoring plots representative of some most diffuse temperate and Mediterranean forests, under different coppice management regimes. Periodic inventories were performed in the surveyed plots since the 1970s. Annual litterfall production and its partitioning (leaf, woody, reproductive parts) and optical canopy measurements using the LAI-2000 Plant Canopy Analyzer were performed every year in fully equipped plots since the 1990s. These data can be used for evaluating the influence of coppice management in the stand and canopy structure, the parametrization of radiative transfer models that require accurate ground truth data, and the calibration of high to medium resolution remotely sensed data. Dataset access is at https://doi.org/10.17632/z8zm3ytkcx.2. Associated metadata is available at https://agroenvgeo.data.inra.fr/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/2bd2d77f-3cf8-43da-b1b5-9f8196dc017f . © 2019, INRA and Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature.