Structural variation of forest edges across Europe
(2020) Forest Ecology and Management — Vol. 462, p. 117929 (2020)
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- Forest edges are interfaces between forest interiors and adjacent landcover types. They are importan telements in the landscape with almost 20% of the global forest area located within 100 m of the edge. Edges are structurally different from forest interiors, which results in unique edge influences on micro climate,functioning and biodiversity. These edge influences have been studied for multiple decades, yet there is only limited in ormation available on how fores tedge structure varies at the continental scale, and which factors drive this potential structural diversity. Here we quantified the structural variation along 45 edge-to-interior transects situated along latitudinal,elevational and management gradients across Europe. We combined state-of-the-art terrestrial lase rscanning and conventional forest inventory techniques to investigate how the forest edge structure(e.g.plan area index,stem density,canopy height and foliage height diversity) varies and which factors affect this forest edge structural variability. Macroclimate, management, distance to the forest edge and tree community composition all influenced the forest edge structural variability and interestinglywe detected interactive effects of our predictors aswell. We found more abrupt edge-to-interior gradients(i.e.steeper slopes) in the plant area index in regularly thinned forests. In addition, latitude, mean annual temperature and humidity all affected edge-to-interior gradients in stem density. We also detected a simultaneous impact of both humidity and management, and humidity and distanc e to the forest edge,on the canopy height and foliage height diversity. These results contribute to our understanding of howenvironmental conditions and management shape the forest edge structure. Our findings stress the need forsite-specific recommendations on forest edge management instead of generalized recommendations as the macroclimate substantially influences the ores t edge structure. Only then, the forest edge microclimate, functioning and biodiversity can be conserve data local scale.
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Meeussen, C., Govaert, S., Vanneste, T., Calders, K., Bollmann, K., Brunet, J., Cousins, S. A. O., Diekmann, M., Graae, B. J., Hedwall, P.-O., Krishna Moorthy, S. M., Iacopetti, G., Lenoir, J., Lindmo, S., Orczewska, A., Ponette, Q., Plue, J., Selvi, F., Spicher, F., et al. (2020). Structural variation of forest edges across Europe. Forest Ecology and Management, 462, 117929. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2020.117929 (Original work published 2020)