High plant species richness indicates management-related disturbances rather than the conservation status of forests

By S. Boch, D. Prati, Jörg C Müller, S. Socher, H. Baumbach, F. Buscot, S. Gockel, A. Hemp, D. Hessenmöller, E. Kalko and 9 more. 2013

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There is a wealth of smaller-scale studies on the effects of forest management on plant diversity. However, studies comparing plant species diversity in forests with different management types and intensity, extending over different regions and forest stages, and including detailed information on site conditions are missing. We studied vascular plants on 1500 20 m × 20 m forest plots in three regions of Germany (Schwabische Alb, Hainich-Dun, Schorfheide-Chorin). In all regions, our study plots comprised different management types (unmanaged, selection cutting, deciduous and coniferous age-class forests, which resulted from clear cutting or shelterwood logging), various stand ages, site conditions, and levels of management-related disturbances. We analyzed how overall richness and richness of different plant functional groups (trees, shrubs, herbs, herbaceous species typically growing in forests and herbaceous light-demanding species) responded to the different management types. On average, plant species richness was 13% higher in age-class than in unmanaged forests, and did not differ between deciduous age-class and selection forests. In age-class forests of the Schwabische Alb and Hainich-Dun, coniferous stands had higher species richness than deciduous stands. Among age-class forests, older stands with large quantities of standing biomass were slightly poorer in shrub and light-demanding herb species than younger stands. Among deciduous forests, the richness of herbaceous forest species was generally lower in unmanaged than in managed forests, and it was even 20% lower in unmanaged than in selection forests in Hainich-Dun. Overall, these findings show that disturbances by management generally increase plant species richness. This suggests that total plant species richness is not suited as an indicator for the conservation status of forests, but rather indicates disturbances.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Insect Science, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/64114368731ddb9b27775b2001f78d6495bd81df

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Citations in the corpus

The impact of even‐aged and uneven‐aged forest management on regional biodiversity of multiple taxa in European beech forests (2018, background): “Differentiation among the species groups of forest and nonforest specialists further showed that EA management not only promotes generalists or disturbance indicators as previously reported for plants (Boch et al., 2013) or ground- dwelling beetles (Lange et al.”
Diversity and trait composition of moths respond to land-use intensification in grasslands: generalists replace specialists (2017, background): “Extensively used grassland with low disturbance by livestock grazing typically maintains a higher structural diversity and higher plant diversity than more disturbed and intensively managed sites (Boch et al. 2013; Socher et al. 2012).”
Effects of forest management on ground-dwelling beetles (Coleoptera; Carabidae, Staphylinidae) in Central Europe are mainly mediated by changes in forest structure (2014, unknown): “On each plot we conducted a forest vegetation survey on a 20 m 20 m subplot at the forest inventory circle in spring and summer, in order to record both early spring geophytes and later emerging species (Boch et al., 2013).”
Factors controlling decomposition rates of fine root litter in temperate forests and grasslands (2014, methodology): “In 2009, we recorded vegetation data in 20 m×20 m forest plots in spring and summer (for details see Boch et al. 2013), and in 4 m×4 m grassland plots only once in summer (for details see Socher et al. 2013).”