Beech forests play an important role in temperate and north Mediterranean ecosystems in Greece since they occupy infertile montane soils. In the last glacial maximum, Fagus sylvatica (beech) was confined to Southern Europe where it was dominant and in the last thousand years has expanded its range to dominate central Europe. We sampled four different beech forest types. We found 298 insect species associated with beech trees and dead beech wood. While F. sylvatica and Quercus (oak) are confamilial, there are great differences in richness of the associated entomofauna. Insect species that inhabit beech forests are less than one fifth of those species living in oak dominated forests despite the fact that beech is the most abundant central and north European tree. There is a distinct paucity of monophagous species on beech trees and most insect species are shared between co-occurring deciduous tree species and beech. This lack of species is attributed to the vegetation history and secondary plant chemistry. Bark and leaf biophenols from beech indicate that differences in plant secondary metabolites may be responsible for the differences in the richness of entomofauna in communities dominated by beech and other deciduous trees.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to give a general description and analysis of the key factors important for forest biodiversity, and to show the development of a strategy for choosing an indicator methodology for assessment of forest biodiversity. Different biodiversity indicator schemes (methodologies) have been developed recently and all should be capable of being adapted to the specific objectives of biodiversity assessment and to the forest types concerned.Design/methodology/approachA forest ecosystem comprises three main components: structure (e.g. physical characteristics); composition (e.g. number and population of species); and function (e.g. evapo‐transpiration) and it is upon these characteristics that forest biodiversity is based and determined. Forest ecosystems can therefore be characterised by key factors (parameters) which are important for the development of indicators and evaluation of biodiversity.FindingsThe key factors can be grouped or classified according to major ecosystem components and also according to spatial scale (national, regional, landscape and stand level). Selected indicators are the tools that can be used to assess the size/or level and quality of forest biodiversity.Originality/valueBiodiversity key factors and indicators are crucial for studying and monitoring forest biodiversity.

We investigated the variability in resin yield of Aleppo pines in Evia (Greece) with the aim to exploit this natural resource in a sustainable way. Ten experimental plots were established in natural pine stands for monitoring. Our results revealed significant differences among stands, with high variation among individual trees in each plot. Maximum resin production was achieved in the Livadakia site whereas the minimum was obtained in Kokinomilia. All trees were classified according to their resin production into five classes ranging from not economically profitable (I) to highly profitable (V). From a total of 2483 trees, 1043 (42%) were in class I whereas the remaining 58% was classified into economically acceptable classes (II–V). A weak correlation (R² = 0.315) between resin production and tree size was found suggesting that taller trees produced more resin than smaller trees

This paper deals with the impact of the pine scale (Marchalina hellenica Gennadius, Hemiptera, Sternorrhyncha, Margarodidae) on the insect biodiversity of pinewoods in Attica, Greece. The comparison of biodiversities was done by estimating the biodiversity by the Ewens-Caswell V statistic in a set of nine sites each containing two linetransects. Transects pairs went through free and infested pinewoods from the pine scale and each one had several tenth hectare plots on both sides. The ecosystem temperature (= disorder) of the sites was computed and found high, together with the idiosyncratic temperatures (= susceptibility to extinction) of the 158 species in order to detect local extinctions. The indicator values of insect species were computed on the basis of the relative cover of each plant species. The main findings of this study are (1) the reduction of insect species biodiversity because of the introduction of the pine scale, (2) the moderate increase of disorder in pine scale infested sites,(3) many insect species can characterize site groups but none of them can distinguish infested from pine scale free sites. The introduction of pine scale in pinewoods disturbs their insect fauna before its influence to the floristic composition and the associated vegetation structure appears. The causes behind this reduction of biodiversity and the anthropogenic influences are discussed.

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.