Abstract
Renaturalization treatment in black pine afforestation is an important topic that should be considered. There is a need to favor the evolution of artificial pine forests toward natural forest systems. Overall, this study focused on pine forests, and suggests one typology of clear-cutting (dismantling cutting) on strips, which is associated with different extraction management techniques. Some ecological and environmental aspects associated with renaturalization treatments that have been applied by different mechanizations in black pine afforestation have been highlighted, as well as how renaturalization and the active ecological management of these stands could affect soil and vegetation. The main objectives of this research were to: (1) analyze the impact of silvicultural treatment and logging activities on forest soil, and (2) assess tree regeneration and floristic biodiversity in an ecological management system, in terms of both quantity and quality characteristics. These analyses were planned to obtain an overview of the environmental impact related to a multifunctional approach to the forest management of black pine afforestation. Essentially, the answers to the main research questions are: (1) less invasive extraction systems seem to use a cable yarder and forest winch; (2) a clear soil recovery trend with good capabilities is visible, in particular for the two extraction systems by cable; however, over a three-year period, only a partial but substantial recovery has been shown; (3) in general, silvicultural treatment showed qualitative and quantitative improvement in terms of tree regeneration; in particular, the extraction systems by forest winch and cable yarder showed better results; (4) silvicultural treatment seems not to have led to improvement at the level of the herbaceous and shrubby layers; however, clear differences are shown among the different harvesting systems. Significant recovery after use of the cable yarder was observed.
Highlights
Among the different coniferous species, black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) has been successfully used in Italy since the beginning of last century for afforestation, as well as the recolonization of pasturesForests 2018, 9, 366; doi:10.3390/f9060366 www.mdpi.com/journal/forestsForests 2018, 9, 366 and degraded environments due to its favorable frugal characteristics [1,2]
The dendrometric data collected before the harvesting of the two blocks showed average values, which were statistically similar for trees age, DBH tree height, basal area, tree density, and aboveground biomass stock (Table 4)
The findings show that soil bulk density (BD), penetration resistance (PR), and SR were influenced by both silvicultural treatment and logging operations
Summary
Among the different coniferous species, black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) has been successfully used in Italy since the beginning of last century for afforestation, as well as the recolonization of pasturesForests 2018, 9, 366; doi:10.3390/f9060366 www.mdpi.com/journal/forestsForests 2018, 9, 366 and degraded environments due to its favorable frugal characteristics [1,2]. 240,000 ha (about 3% of the forested area in Italy) [3] This afforestation provides soil protection and the restarting of dynamic and evolutionary processes of vegetation. Today many of these afforested areas are in a poor physical and biological state with no dynamic processes This is due to the combination of several factors (i.e., the inadequate treatment and biotic and environmental adversity). These areas require urgent silvicultural action in the form of renaturalization [5,6] to ensure the permanence of land cover, with the gradual replacement of pine with late successional tree species that are typical of more mature stages of evolution (native broadleaves). The woody material that was required as a source of renewable energy opens up interesting prospects for the use of biomass obtainable by the renaturalization of these types of forests
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