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Pubblicazioni Scientifiche
Filtri di ricerca 3 risultati
Pubblicazioni per anno
Multiple drivers of functional diversity in temperate forest understories: Climate, soil, and forest structure effects
Chelli
,
Stefano
,
Bricca
,
Alessandro
,
Tsakalos
,
James L.
,
Andreetta
,
Anna
,
Bonari
,
Gianmaria
,
Campetella
,
Giandiego
,
Carnicelli
,
Stefano
,
Cervellini
,
Marco
,
Puletti
,
Nicola
,
Wellstein
,
Camilla
,
Canullo
,
R.
climate change
functional diversity
bud bank
forest management
plant height
seed mass
specific leaf area
Mostra abstract
In macroecology, shifting from coarse- to local-scale explanatory factors is crucial for understanding how global change impacts functional diversity (FD). Plants possess diverse traits allowing them to differentially respond across a spectrum of environmental conditions. We aim to assess how macro- to microclimate, stand-scale measured soil properties, forest structure, and management type, influence forest understorey FD at the macroecological scale. Our study covers Italian forests, using thirteen predictors categorized into climate, soil, forest structure, and management. We analyzed five traits (i.e., specific leaf area, plant size, seed mass, belowground bud bank size, and clonal lateral spread) capturing independent functional dimensions to calculate the standardized effect size of functional diversity (SES-FD) for all traits (multi-trait) and for single traits. Multiple regression models were applied to assess the effect of predictors on SES-FD. We revealed that climate, soil, and forest structure significantly drive SES-FD of specific leaf area, plant size, seed mass, and bud bank. Forest management had a limited effect. However, differences emerged between herbaceous and woody growth forms of the understorey layer, with herbaceous species mainly responding to climate and soil features, while woody species were mainly affected by forest structure. Future warmer and more seasonal climate could reduce the diversity of resource economics, plant size, and persistence strategies of the forest understorey. Soil eutrophication and acidification may impact the diversity of regeneration strategies; canopy closure affects the diversity of above- and belowground traits, with a larger effect on woody species. Multifunctional approaches are vital to disentangle the effect of global changes on functional diversity since independent functional specialization axes are modulated by different drivers. © 2024 The Authors
Sustainable forest planning: Assessing biodiversity effects of Triad zoning based on empirical data and virtual landscapes
Duflot
,
Rémi
,
Heinrichs
,
Steffi
,
Balducci
,
Lorenzo
,
Chianucci
,
Francesco
,
Hofmeister
,
Jeňýk
,
Paillet
,
Yoan
,
Trentanovi
,
Giovanni
,
Archaux
,
Frédéric
,
Boch
,
Steffen
,
Bouget
,
Christophe
,
Dvořák
,
Daniel
,
Fischer
,
Markus
,
Gosselin
,
Frédéric
,
Gosselin
,
Marion
,
Goßner
,
Martin M.
,
Holá
,
Eva
,
Hošek
,
Jan
,
Jung
,
Kirsten G.
,
Palice
,
Zdeněk
,
Renner
,
Swen C.
,
Weisser
,
Wolfgang W.
,
Nagel
,
Thomas A.
,
Burrascano
,
Sabina
,
Schall
,
Peter
Mostra abstract
The Triad framework seeks to balance the economic and ecological functions in forested landscapes by combining intensively, extensively, and unmanaged areas, assuming a higher support to biodiversity in extensively rather than in intensively managed forests. We quantified the effects of Triad zoning on biodiversity in (sub)montane eutrophic European beech forests. Using a European-wide multitaxon database and a “virtual” landscape approach (i.e., by resampling empirical data), we evaluated how the proportion of Triad management categories affected the landscape-level species diversity of birds, saproxylic beetles, vascular plants, epiphytic bryophytes, lichens, and wood-inhabiting fungi, as well as multitaxonomic diversity. The results varied greatly among taxonomic groups. Multitaxonomic diversity peaked in landscapes composed of 60% unmanaged and 40% intensively managed forests. While intensive management can benefit some taxa through the creation of open habitats, unmanaged forests are the backbone of biodiversity conservation, underlining the need to safeguard the remaining old-growth forests under natural dynamics, and to extend the current area of unmanaged forests in Europe. Extensive forest management, however, did not contribute to biodiversity conservation as expected. As withdrawing such a high proportion of European forest landscapes from management is unfeasible given the increasing demand for timber, efforts are needed to increase the presence of structural features supporting biodiversity into extensively managed forests. © © 2025 the Author(s).
Structural attributes of stand overstory and light under the canopy
Mostra abstract
This paper reviews the literature relating to the relationship between light availability in the understory and the main qualitative and quantitative attributes of stand overstory usually considered in forest management and planning (species composition, density, tree sizes, etc.) as well as their changes as consequences of harvesting. The paper is divided in two sections: the first one reviews studies which investigated the influence of species composition on understory light conditions; the second part examines research on the relationships among stand parameters determined from mensurational field data and the radiation on understory layer. The objective was to highlight which are the most significant stand traits and management features to build more practical models for predicting light regimes in any forest stand and, in more general terms, to support forest managers in planning and designing silvicultural treatments that retain structure in different way in order to meet different objectives.