Below- and above-ground biomass, structure and patterns in ancient lowland coppices

Abstract

Ancient coppice woods are areas that reflect long-term human influence and contain high species biodiversity. In this type of forest we aimed to: (i) analyze the below-and above ground biomass of stools and estimate the age of largest stool; (ii) define a "zone of interference" for coppices; (iii) describe and classify variability in the shape and size of coppice stools; (iv) define the specific characteristics of the spatial distribution of stems and stools. The study was conducted in the Podyjí National Park, Czech Republic, where two old oak coppice stands were fully stem mapped: Lipina (3.90 ha) and Šobes (2.37 ha). Cores were processed using TimeTable and PAST4. Below-and above-ground biomass of the largest stools was computed using the data from terrestrial laser scanner. Tree zones of influence were analyzed with V-Late landscape analysis tools using Shape Index for singles and 0.87 m 2 for stools. The Matérn cluster process was successfully fitted to our empirical data. In this model, the mean cluster radius ranged between 1.9 to 2.1 m and mean number of points per cluster was 1.7 and 1.9. The most prevalent characteristics of these ancient oak coppices were their compact shape and clustered spatial distribution up to 10 m.

Tree shape and form in ancient coppice woodlands

“…Polycormon girth at the base, or in other words, the diameter of imaginary circle formed by individual stems of the polycormon, is directly proportional to age during which it was coppiced (Piggot, 1989;Vrška et al, 2016). This corresponds to our results when we recorded significant differences between individual sites; from this point of view, the sites surveyed by Vrška et al, (2016) in the Podyjí National Park are even more ancient.…”

“…Rackham (1986) described ancient European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) coppice stools, which were found to be thousands of years old. Vrška et al, (2016) published their own method of age estimation and mentioned the polycormon of oak (Quercus petraea) with 7 stems and stool diameter at ground up to 5 m, which was 825 ± 145 (SE) years old. It seems however that these estimates may be somewhat overstated.…”

“…Vrška et al, (2016) mentions the representation of multi-stemmed polycormons on the surveyed localities with very well preserved ancient coppice woods at 75 %. The more single-stemmed individuals is in the stand, which came to existence through the thinning of the original polycormons, the less representative and preserved is the site.…”

Ancient Coppice Woodlands in the Landscape of the Czech Republic

“…The age of polycormons of coppice shoots can reach several hundreds of years. For example, in the Podyjí National Park, an oak polycormon was analysed with seven coppice stems, which was aged 825 years (Vrška et al 2016). The occurrence of old polycormons of coppice shoots is a decisive criterion for the delimitation of the localities of ancient coppice woodlands and for the assessment of their significance.…”

Predicted occurrence of ancient coppice woodlands in the Czech Republic

“…The main component of ancient coppice woodlands is the presence of ancient coppice stools, which can reach 1000 years in age and demonstrate the long-term continuity of coppicing (Rackham 1986, Pigott 1989, Vrška et al 2017. In addition to the ancient coppice stools, the presence of tree microhabitats (Winter & Möller 2008), especially water filled cavities (dendrotelms -Kitching 1971) are among the important natural features increasing biodiversity.…”