Local Forest Management Research Articles

Study on Spatial-Distribution Characteristics Based on Fire-Spot Data in Northern China

Forest fires are an important disturbance in forest ecosystems and can affect the structure and function of forests. These must be mitigated, to eliminate the associated harmful impacts on forests and the environment as well as to have a healthy and sustainable environment for wildlife. The northern region of China (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, and Hebei provinces) is one of the important deciduous broadleaf forests and boreal-forest ecosystems in China. Based on the monitoring of historical remote-sensing products, this study analyzes and explores the spatial- and temporal-distribution patterns of forest fires in Northern China in 2020 and 2021, providing a strong scientific basis for forest-fire prevention and management. The number of monthly forest fires in the northern region in 2020 and 2021 was counted, to obtain seasonal and interannual forest-fire variation. The results show that the number of forest fires occurring in Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces in 2021 is smaller than that in 2020. The occurrence of forest fires is, mainly, concentrated in spring and autumn, especially in April and October. The number of forest fires that occurred in Hebei Province in 2020 and 2021 was almost the same, showing a slight increasing trend, especially with more growth in February. It is worth noting that Heilongjiang Province is the region with the highest number of forest fires, regardless of the comparison of the total number of forest fires in two years or the number of forest fires in a single year. Spatial-clustering analysis (Ripley’s K) was used to analyze the spatial-distribution pattern of forest fires, in each province of northern China, and the results showed that forest fires were significantly aggregated in all four provinces. The experimental analysis conducted in this paper can provide local forest managers and firefighting agencies with the opportunity to better plan for fighting fires and improve forest-management effectiveness. Based on mastering the characteristics of the spatial and temporal dynamics of forest fires, fire-prevention publicity and education should be strengthened, and scientific forest-fire-prevention measures should be applied to plan reasonable forest-protection policies. This will contribute towards a healthy and sustainable environment.

Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea by David Fedman

Reviewed by: Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea by David Fedman Robert Winstanley-Chesters Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea by David Fedman. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. Pp. xvii + 292. $40.00 hardcover, $40.00 e-book. "The mountain ranges in Korea cover more than half the total area of the country. Owing to indiscriminate felling of trees without public supervision, which was practiced for a long time past, most of the mountain slopes … have become denuded of trees."1 Traditionally, academic histories of Korean forests almost inevitably start with the assertions of the Japanese colonial authorities, such as this quotation from a report published by Tokyo's famous precolonial Resident-General Itō Hirobumi 伊藤博文 in 1907. In this colonial narrative, Korean forest history, in comparison with Japan's, was not auspicious. The Chosŏn dynasty bequeathed only degraded forests and mountains, covered not in trees but in vividly red soil. Japan has a long history of appointing forest wardens (yamamori 山守) and timber magistrates (zaimokuishi bugyō 材木石奉行) to quantify and survey national, regional, and local [End Page 158] timber resources. In comparison, "the ownership of forests" in Korea was historically ambiguous.2 When it comes to environmental history, these colonial presumptions became commonsense knowledge globally; they have been both internalized by Koreans and projected onto postcolonial Korean narratives about the peninsula's own forests. This intellectual inheritance from the colonial period means that to most academic readers, Park Chung-hee's 박정희 efforts at greening South Korea, through the New Village movement (K. Saemaŭl undong 새마을운동) and other projects in the 1960s and 1970s, are a huge surprise and feel in some way counter to the grain of Korean history. The barren slopes close to population centers in North Korea, with their damaged and depleted ecologies, are what we expect when it comes to Korean forest spaces. This unbalanced narrative inherited from pre-1945 prejudices is of course not true. It was never true. But academic writing is only recently beginning to find a more nuanced and empirical direction. While Conrad Totman's masterful 1989 book outlines in beautiful, intricate detail the minutiae of pre-Meiji Japanese forestry, we have waited until now for a piece of work that does the same in Korean history in English.3 David Fedman's Seeds of Control aims for a historical frame closer to our present time than Totman's, but it shares similar ambitions. It is worth saying at the outset that Fedman's work is the first in an emergent body of work in Korean environmental history. John Lee's doctoral work on Chosŏn's "kingdom of pines" sets the tone for a complete reconfiguration of Korea's forest history: Lee illuminates the reality that Korea had a long history of coherent forest management revolving around red pine (Pinus densiflora) and black pine (Pinus thunbergii), which were perhaps not as practically attractive as the hardwoods most important and traditional to Japan.4 Fedman's book beautifully plays off colonial horror on Korea's alien red soil, as much as it plays on James Scott's words for its title: if states have to see in a particular way to assert political claims and their legitimacy, then they have to seed in a similar way, both agriculturally [End Page 159] and arboreally.5 Seeds of Control explores the various processes by and through which Japanese imperialism constructed a particular vision of modernity on Korean forest landscapes. As with most developmental narratives related to colonial Korea, the approach Fedman describes does not apply to the later period of total-war mobilization, when all the peninsula's resources, including its trees, served Tokyo's military strategy. Fedman's work is most fascinating for the unexpected glitches in the colonial system it describes. Just like the colonial administration, Japanese scientists were unimpressed by Koreans' love for red pine. Pine associations (K. songgye 松契), Korea's traditional institutions for local forest management, were regarded with suspicion and deemed ripe for modernization. According to the Japanese, "Songgye had failed to curb deforestation on a national scale … precisely because of their parochialism. Their legacy was atomized pockets of protected...

A Strategy for involving community forest managers in effective forest fire management in Nepal

Each year forest fire causes enormous damage to Nepal's forest ecosystems and landscape. For an active community involvement at the landscape level, policymakers must take the interests of local forest managers into account to increase social acceptability. This research explores the perception of community forest managers, who are constantly managing forests at the grassroots level, to understand the relationship between their priorities, needs, and attitudes toward forest fire management. Eighty–eight key informants from six districts were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into three major sections, (i) forest fuel management and infrastructure, (ii) forest fire management strategies and actions, and (iii) public education and awareness on forest fire management. The data were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis test, where the respondents rated above 4.2 out of 5 for activities like increase of insurance mechanisms, providing training for firefighting volunteer groups, and provisioning firefighting equipment. The majority of the respondents agreed on the activities under the forest fire management strategies and actions section (Kendall's Tau = 0.8501), followed by forest fuel management and infrastructure (Kendall’s Tau= 0.6757). We anticipate that the results of this study will be helpful for the local decision–makers in involving different communities and identifying their priorities while implementing various forest fire management activities in diverse landscapes or provinces of the country.

Enhancing the sustainable management of mangrove forests: The case of Punta Galeta, Panama

Mangrove forests fulfill essential socio-ecological roles, such as providing timber and other forest products, protecting coasts against erosion and rising sea levels, supporting healthy fisheries, and fostering biodiversity. Sustainable mangrove management (SMM) aims to address mangrove degradation and reverse trends of mangrove loss while empowering local stakeholders to participate in governance processes. This paper contributes to SMM scholarship through a case study of Punta Galeta, a protected mangrove forest located in the Colón District in Panama, near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. Our primary objective was to understand the challenges and opportunities associated with SMM in Punta Galeta and to identify insights of relevance to Panama and Latin America. We identified several successful SMM strategies, such as local awareness-raising on the socio-ecological benefits of mangrove forests and corporate sponsorship of mangrove restoration. However, several facets of SMM remained challenging, such as implementing and enforcing management plans and fostering regular communication and collaboration between all stakeholders. Findings suggest that local-level SMM requires a greater focus on strategies to enhance communication, collaboration, and trusting relationships between diverse stakeholders, as well as a more cohesive vision for the sectoral uses of coastlines. Further experimentation with different forms of social organization in support of local sustainable mangrove forest conservation and management are needed.

Initial oak regeneration responses to experimental warming along microclimatic and macroclimatic gradients.

Quercus spp. are one of the most important tree genera in temperate deciduous forests in terms of biodiversity, economic and cultural perspectives. However, natural regeneration of oaks, depending on specific environmental conditions, is still not sufficiently understood. Oak regeneration dynamics are impacted by climate change, but these climate impacts will depend on local forest management and light and temperature conditions. Here, we studied germination, survival and seedling performance (i.e. aboveground biomass, height, root collar diameter and specific leaf area) of four oak species (Q. cerris, Q. ilex, Q. robur and Q. petraea). Acorns were sown across a wide latitudinal gradient, from Italy to Sweden, and across several microclimatic gradients located within and beyond the species' natural ranges. Microclimatic gradients were applied in terms of forest structure, distance to the forest edge and experimental warming. We found strong interactions between species and latitude, as well as between microclimate and latitude or species. The species thus reacted differently to local and regional changes in light and temperature ; in southern regions the temperate Q. robur and Q. petraea performed best in plots with a complex structure, whereas the Mediterranean Q. ilex and Q. cerris performed better in simply structured forests with a reduced microclimatic buffering capacity. The experimental warming treatment only enhanced height and aboveground biomass of Mediterranean species. Our results show that local microclimatic gradients play a key role in the initial stages of oak regeneration; however, one needs to consider the species-specific responses to forest structure and the macroclimatic context.

Predicting Wildfire Fuels and Hazard in a Central European Temperate Forest Using Active and Passive Remote Sensing

Climate change causes more extreme droughts and heat waves in Central Europe, affecting vegetative fuels and altering the local fire regime. Wildfire is projected to expand into the temperate zone, a region traditionally not concerned by fire. To mitigate this new threat, local forest management will require spatial fire hazard information. We present a holistic and comprehensible workflow for quantifying fuels and wildfire hazard through fire spread simulations. Surface and canopy fuels characteristics were sampled in a small managed temperate forest in Northern Germany. Custom fuel models were created for each dominant species (Pinus sylvestris, Fagus sylvatica, and Quercus rubra). Canopy cover, canopy height, and crown base height were directly derived from airborne LiDAR point clouds. Surface fuel types and crown bulk density (CBD) were predicted using random forest and ridge regression, respectively. Modeling was supported by 119 predictors extracted from LiDAR, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2 data. We simulated fire spread from random ignitions, considering eight environmental scenarios to calculate fire behavior and hazard. Fuel type classification scored an overall accuracy of 0.971 (Kappa = 0.967), whereas CBD regression performed notably weaker (RMSE = 0.069; R2 = 0.73). Higher fire hazard was identified for strong winds, low fuel moisture, and on slopes. Fires burned fastest and most frequently on slopes in large homogeneous pine stands. These should be the focus of preventive management actions.

Evaluating the effects of alternative landscape management scenarios on three old-forest-associated predators over 100 years in the fire-prone forests of the Sierra Nevada, USA

Developing and implementing landscape-scale management strategies capable of balancing the need for restoring natural fire regimes and promoting ecosystem resiliency for future climate change remains an urgent need globally. To help guide development of a landscape management strategy capable of meeting multiple objectives, five alternative landscape management scenarios for reducing the risk of uncharacteristically severe wildfire using thinning or managed and prescribed wildfire were developed by local forest managers in the Lake Tahoe region of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Effects of each scenario on forest structure, composition, and wildfire behavior were simulated over a 100-year period using the dynamic landscape simulation model LANDIS-II. We developed empirical territory occurrence models for three old-forest-associated predators, using 22 California Spotted Owl, 28 Northern Goshawk, and 16 female Pacific marten territories and presence-only modeling to evaluate the effects of each management scenario. The recruitment of more old-forest habitat across the simulated landscape was a more significant factor than any differences in the management scenarios, resulting in increases in the numbers of territories for all three predators, regardless of scenario. Increases in the numbers of territories were slowed in Scenario 4, which had the greatest amount of thinning, but the positive trend continued decades beyond when the other scenarios began to show a decline in territory numbers from severe wildfire. However, increases in the numbers of territories over time were slowed and overall were the lowest for the two old-forest predators that were most sensitive to the amount of old forest at the territory scale in the scenario with the greatest pace and scale of treatments. This suggests a trade-off between slowing the increase in the numbers of territories in the short term from forest growth by using fuels treatments with increased pace and scale to create forest structure that is less susceptible to severe wildfire in the long term, and that these management scenarios may need to be re-evaluated in 50 years before committing to continuing management efforts that may ultimately become detrimental for old-forest predators within 100 years.

Sustainable Community Forestry: Insights from Rural Thailand

Community participation in forest management has evolved as the new paradigm of natural resource governance in recent decades. Focusing on community participation in local forest resource management, this article examines the evolution and working of community forestry in Thailand from a socio-historical perspective. It narrates the social history of forest governance practices in Thailand and explores the community’s response towards deforestation, resource degradation and rising livelihood insecurity. Drawing insights from three case studies of community participation in forest governance from the provinces of Lampang, Lamphun and Kanchanaburi, this article highlights the potentials of community forestry in evolving as an alternative institution for sustainable livelihood security and forest governance. The article maps out the social history of forest governance practices in Thailand by identifying three successive stages: (a) influence of early European colonial rule in the neighbouring territories, (b) the American influence of 1960s, and (c) social uprisings and a visible ‘community’ in forest management practice.

Behind the general pattern of forest loss and gain: A long-term assessment of semi-natural and secondary forest cover change at country level

Despite deforestation taking place globally, forest cover is increasing in many European landscapes. This increase, however, resulting from plantations and spontaneous forest regrowth, may obscure the generally declining trend of semi-natural forests, though the latter are essential for local and landscape-level conservation strategies and sustainable forest management. We assessed changes in semi-natural and secondary forest cover since the 18th century in Hungary, focusing on the continuity of semi-natural forests. The main trajectories of regional and country-scale forest transformations were reconstructed from the fine-scale site histories of 1,728 randomly selected sample localities. Historical and recent datasets were complemented with field data to estimate forest cover change for seven time periods between the 1780s and the 2010s. Total forest cover changes over these 230 years showed a U-shape curve (from 25% to 24%), leading to a forest minimum in the first half of the 20th century. Semi-natural and secondary forests exhibited strikingly different trends. The proportion of semi-natural forests decreased to 36% of the total forest area by the 2010s, driven mainly by conversion to arable land, while 88% of the actual semi-natural forests have remained continuous forest since the 18th century. Our results showed that when reconstructing landscape-scale historical forest cover change and continuity, the loss of semi-natural forests remains hidden if the calculations are limited to ‘total forest cover change’. It would therefore be immensely important to distinguish between semi-natural and secondary forests, and between types of continuity in the assessments used for conservation-oriented landscape planning and sustainable forest management.

Study of species associations in native habitats of the genus Dacrydium Lamb. (Podocarpaceae) in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

The tropical coniferous genus Dacrydium Lamb. is occurring with some species in various habitat types in Kalimantan, Indonesia. So far four species are recorded for that area. Even though the species are considered globally as Endangered and Least Threatened species by the IUCN, in Central Kalimantan the genus is under threat from pressures related to logging, fire and land conversion. Locally known as Alau, this genus prospers in a range of habitats from heath to deep-peat swamp forests in Central Kalimantan. Data from field plots across four sites in Central Kalimantan are used to compare variations in habitat and species composition where Alau trees are present. The results of the analysis show the wide range of habitat structure as well as species diversity where Alau tends to thrive. The characterization of these sites may be helpful in protecting and conserving Alau forest areas under social forestry and local forest management resource use plans.

Evaluation of work plan implementation of community forest management business license case study in Karya Lestari farmers group, Sibaganding Village, Girsang Sipangan Bolon Sub-district, Simalungun Regency

One of the Social Forestry schemes is the Community Forest (CF) which aims to empower communities around forest areas. CF Management Business Permits are given to the community through Farmers Groups and are obliged to make a Business Work Plan for a period of 10 years and an Annual Work Plan. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the implementation of the Annual Work Plan for Community Forest management in the Karya Lestari Farmer’s Group, Sibaganding Village, Girsang Sipangan Bolon District, Simalungun Regency, based on technical, socio-economic and institutional aspects. The research was carried out between October 2020 and January 2021. The data used are primary and secondary data with the method of taking the object of research by census. Data were analyzed using reduction method, presentation, verification and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the implementation of the Annual Work Plan in 2019 FG Karya Lestari was in 4 activities (14.29 %) and 24 activities (85.71 %). The four activities can be carried out because of the assistance from the local Forest Management Unit, the activities do not require funds and can be carried out in mutual cooperation. The cause of the other activities has not been carried out due to inadequate facilities and infrastructure, lack of funds and low human resources.

Vegetation structure, aboveground biomass, and carbon storage of wono¸ a local forest management in Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, across three geomorphological zones

Abstract. Tohirin, Suryanto P, Sadono R. 2021. Vegetation structure, aboveground biomass, and carbon storage of wono¸ local forest management in Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, across three geomorphological zones. Biodiversitas 22: 3207-3218. Wono is local community-based forest management in Gunungkidul District, Yogyakarta. This land use has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through their carbon sequestration capacity as well as to produce renewable energy sources through wood biomass for charcoal and wood pellet. Since Gunungkidul is unique in terms of geomorphological characteristics, study on the vegetation structure, biomass estimation, and carbon storage of wono across geomorphological zones are important. Therefore, this study describes the vegetation structure of wono in three geomorphological zones of Gunungkidul District, as well as estimates the aboveground living biomass (AGB) and aboveground living carbon storage (AGC). The quadratic sampling technique was used to collect data for vegetation analysis with the size of the plots were 20 m x 20 m, 10 m x 10 m, 5 m x 5 m, and 2 m x 2 m for trees, poles, saplings, and seedlings, respectively. A total of 32 plots were established, consisting of 18 plots in Nglanggeran Village, 12 plots in Dengok Village, and six plots in Girisekar Village, each village representing geomorphological zones of Batur Agung, Ledok Wonosari, and Pegunungan Seribu, respectively. The AGB was performed non-destructively and estimated using referenced allometric equations. Furthermore, the AGC was calculated using a conversion factor of 0.47 from the obtained AGB. The results showed that the identified species at wono in Batur Agung, Ledok Wonosari, and Pegunungan Seribu zones were 13, 7, and 8, respectively. Swietenia macrophylla had the highest important value index (IVI) of 185.22% in the Batur Agung zone, while Tectona grandis was the most important species in both the Ledok Wonosari and Pegunungan Seribu zones with IVI= 238.27% and 178.60%, respectively. The biodiversity in these three zones was very low in terms of species diversity (H' < 2) and species richness (R1 < 3.4). The estimated AGB and calculated AGC in the Batur Agung, Ledok Wonosari, and Pegunungan Seribu zones were 210.96 ton ha-1 and 99.15 ton C ha-1, 73.58 ton ha-1 and 34.58 ton C ha-1, and 57.92 ton ha-1 and 27.22 ton C ha-1, respectively.

Potential Hurricane Wind Risk to US Rural and Urban Forests

Abstract Hurricanes cause billions of dollars in damage annually in the United States and are projected to increase in intensity in the coming years. By exploring historical patterns of hurricanes and exposure of these hurricane-force winds across the landscape, areas of potentially high threat to future hurricane winds can be revealed. Combining potential threats from hurricane winds with forest data reveal the areas with the greatest potential threats to this important resource. Not surprisingly, most of the threats to forests occur in the Southeast, but the greatest threats to urban forests overall occur along the Northeast coast and in metropolitan centers in the Southeast. Overall, 4.6% of the nation’s rural forest basal area is within zones of the highest risk from hurricane winds. Information on regional and local scale variations in hurricane risk can be used to aid policies and local forest management to improve forest health and sustainability.

Exploring Archetypes of Tropical Fire-Related Forest Disturbances Based on Dense Optical and Radar Satellite Data and Active Fire Alerts

Tropical forest disturbances linked to fire usage cause large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and environmental damages. Supporting precise GHG estimations and counteracting illegal fire usages in the tropics require timely and thematically detailed large-scale information on fire-related forest disturbances. Multi-sensor optical and radar detection and ranging (radar) remote sensing data combined with active fire alerts shows the potential for a more in-depth characterization of fire-related forest disturbances. We utilized dense optical (Landsat-7, Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2) and radar (Sentinel-1) time series to individually map forest disturbances in the province of Riau (Indonesia) for 2018–2019. We combined the sensor-specific optical and radar forest disturbance maps with daily active fire alerts and classified their temporal relationship (predating, coinciding, postdating) into seven so-called archetypes of fire-related forest disturbances. The archetypes reflect sensor-specific sensitives of optical (e.g., changes in tree foliage) and radar (e.g., changes in tree structure) data to detect varying types of forest disturbances, ranging from either a loss of tree foliage and/or structure predating, coinciding or postdating fires. These can be related to different magnitudes of fire-related forest disturbances and burn severities and can be associated with specific land management practices, such as slash-and-burn agriculture and salvage logging. This can support policy development, local and regional forest management and law enforcement to reduce illegal fire usage in the tropics. Results suggest that a delayed or opposing forest disturbance detection in the optical and radar signal is not only caused by environmental influences or different observation densities but, in some cases, such as fire-related forest disturbances, can be related to their different sensitives to detect changes in tree foliage and structure. Multi-sensor-based forest monitoring approaches should, therefore, not simply combine optical and radar time series on a data level, as it bears the risk of introducing artefacts.

Characterizing changes in land cover and forest fragmentation from multitemporal Landsat observations (1993-2018) in the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve, Nepal

Natural forces and anthropogenic activities greatly alter land cover, deteriorate or alleviate forest fragmentation and affect biodiversity. Thus land cover and forest fragmentation dynamics have become a focus of concern for natural resource management agencies and biodiversity conservation communities. However, there are few land cover datasets and forest fragmentation information available for the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve (DHR) of Nepal to develop targeted biodiversity conservation plans. In this study, these gaps were filled by characterizing land cover and forest fragmentation trends in the DHR. Using five Landsat images between 1993 and 2018, a support vector machine algorithm was applied to classify six land cover classes: forest, grasslands, barren lands, agricultural and built-up areas, water bodies, and snow and glaciers. Subsequently, two landscape process models and four landscape metrics were used to depict the forest fragmentation situations. Results showed that forest cover increased from 39.4% in 1993 to 39.8% in 2018. Conversely, grasslands decreased from 38.2% in 1993 to 36.9% in 2018. The forest shrinkage was responsible for forest loss during the period, suggesting that the loss of forest cover reduced the connectivity between forest and non-forested areas. Expansion was the dominant component of the forest restoration process, implying that it avoided the occurrence of isolated forests. The maximum value of edge density and perimeter area fractal dimension metrics and the minimum value of aggregation index were observed in 2011, revealing that forests in this year were most fragmented. These specific observations from the current analysis can help local authorities and local communities, who are highly dependent on forest resources, to better develop local forest management and biodiversity conservation plans.

Assessing expected economic losses from wildfires in eucalypt plantations of western Brazil

The increasing demand for pulpwood promotes the rapid expansion of eucalypt plantations over fire-prone savannas in western Brazil. Currently, large wildfires pose a real threat to these commercial plantations, disrupting the supply chain. Forest managers lack site-specific quantitative assessments to inform large scale harvesting plans and cost-effective risk reduction programs. In this study, we combined wildfire likelihood estimates with potential fire effects to assess stand-level expected economic losses in eucalypt plantations across a savanna enclave in western Brazil. Here, we used the minimum travel time fire spread algorithm to predict the annual burn probability (aBP). The economic loss was estimated combining pixel-level aBP with the associated forest value according to the raw material market value, the management cost cash flow, and the harvesting rotation period. Young eucalypt stands (< 2 yr) attained the highest wildfire likelihood values, whereas intermediate-age to mature plantations (> 4 yr) showed the largest economic losses (> 400 US$ ha−1 yr−1). Our findings suggest that local forest managers should expect a 1.75% of annual losses in terms of raw material provision, equivalent to some 20 million US$ yr−1. Fuel reduction programs focusing on aBP hotspots plus ignition prevention along the forest interfaces would reduce risk to eucalypt plantations. In addition, environmental policies related to ignition mitigation and correct usage of fire across grasslands might be developed to attenuate the risk. This study implements a methodological framework that would allow comparing alternative wildfire risk management strategies in South American tropical savanna where revenue from forest systems is a fundamental source of income for local economies.

A Study on Land Ownersʼ Consensus Building about Local Forest Management (Academic Article)

A Study on Land Ownersʼ Consensus Building about Local Forest Management (Academic Article)

Modelling Climate–Sensitive Forest Succession to Assess Impacts of Climate Change and Support Decision Making

Mountain forests provide a wide variety of ecosystem services to society. In light of the trend of temperature increase and related climatic extremes in the Greater Alpine Area, mountain forests are likely to undergo dramatic changes in the coming centuries. Therefore, forest managers face the challenge of adapting forests to support resilience to climate change. To facilitate this process, the forest gap model ForClim, a process-based forest succession model, was applied to generate site-specific information on future forest stand development and species composition. The tree species composition without management activities was predicted up to 2100 assuming a stable climate, and for both moderate and severe climate-change scenarios. Furthermore, three different forest stand development scenarios were implemented. The forest stand investigated in our research shows significant climate-sensitivity. Results demonstrate that deciduous mixed forest stands are necessary to increase resilience and manage forests for climate change. Using active silvicultural measures, such as assisted migration through planting thermophilus species, negative effects of climate change could be reduced. The modelling approach presented here is appropriate for assessing the impacts of climate change and supporting decision making by local forest managers.

Turkey's largest cinereous vulture population in a recently discovered breeding area in north-west Anatolia

Studies regarding the cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus), classified globally as near threatened, have recently accelerated in Turkey. Comprehensive studies particularly about the northwestern Anatolian population, have been conducted. Also, the genetic studies carried out, have revealed that the cinereous vulture population in Turkey is panmictic and that it has recently suffered a bottleneck. The main aim of this study conducted across the Köroğlu Mountains in Bolu was to determine the population size and the breeding success of the species. A total of 37 field surveys in 2018 and 2019 have revealed Turkey's largest breeding cinereous vulture colony and have detected 60 breeding pairs. However, breeding success remained low. Considering this and other pertinent population studies, at least 200 pairs are estimated to breed in northwestern Anatolia. Conservation of the species is crucial in terms of the health and sustainability of the ecosystem; therefore, data related to nests must be incorporated into local forest management plans to sustain the Cinereous vulture population and breeding here.

Anachronic Fruit Traits and Natural History Suggest Extinct Megafauna Herbivores as the Dispersers of an Endangered Tree.

Megafaunal seed dispersal syndrome refers to a group of traits attributed to the evolution of plants in the presence of large mammals. Present-day plants that bear these traits in areas where megafauna are absent are presumed to represent anachronic dispersal systems. Gomortega keule is an endangered tree species from a monotypic family (Gomortegaceae), endemic to Chile. Its fruit traits suggest adaptation to seed dispersal by large vertebrates; however, none are present today along its area of distribution. Here, we conducted a detailed revision on the fruit morphology of G. keule to examine whether its fruit traits fit a megafaunal dispersal syndrome. Additionally, we examined the fruit processing behavior of large domestic and captive wild animals fed with G. keule fruits, and its effect on germination. G. keule fruits had traits consistent with those of a Type 1 megafaunal fruit. Compared to intact, whole stones, seed germination probabilities decreased when fruits were handled by animals, suggesting that the seed was damaged during mastication and/or ingestion. Moreover, results from our feeding trials with elephants may also imply low efficiency of extinct gomphotheres as seed dispersers of this species. Our results also suggest that although domestic animals may disperse G. keule, it is unlikely that at present they can substitute the services of its original dispersers. Further investigation on seedling survival, local livestock management and forest management practices may help reinstate sexual regeneration in G. keule. Finally, integrating observations on fruit ecology and local people’s knowledge with experimental data enriches our species-centered approach and may help to address regeneration problems in other endangered plants.