Plant colonization in heterogeneous landscapes: an 80‐year perspective on restoration of broadleaved forest vegetation

Abstract

Summary1. Afforestation of agricultural land has become an important issue in Europe during the past two decades. In particular, broadleaf plantations have been promoted as multifunctional forests for biodiversity, timber production and recreation. The aim of this study was to analyse how the colonization of ground-layer plants in recently planted woodlands is affected by stand age, spatial isolation, former land-use type and canopy species. 2. Colonization was studied in 50 plantations of pedunculate oak Quercus robur and 16 plantations of European sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus on former arable land and open pastures in the Torup-Skabersjö area of southern Sweden. Twelve oak plantations and 10 sycamore plantations on ancient woodland sites were used as reference areas. 3. Woodland species richness increased continuously with stand age in plantations contiguous with ancient woodland. The oldest plantations (70 -80 years) approached the species richness of ancient oak woodland. Species richness decreased with increasing distance from ancient woodlands, and there was no significant increase in species richness between stands aged 20 and 80 years in isolated plantations. Most species that regularly colonized isolated plantations had adhesive seeds or small, wind-dispersed diaspores. 4. Ordination analysis showed clear differentiation between former land-use categories and spatiotemporal stand categories (recently isolated, recently contiguous and ancient). No consistent differences were found in vegetation patterns in oak and sycamore stands. Woodland species richness was similar on former arable land and open pastures. Pasture plantations were characterized by the presence of more acid-tolerant species, whereas the frequency of some acid-sensitive species was higher on former fields. 5. Synthesis and applications. This study demonstrates that new woodland should build out from cores of ancient woodland for optimal ground vegetation development. A species-rich ground vegetation can be achieved by spontaneous colonization within 70-80 years when plantations are contiguous with ancient woods. Formerly cultivated soils are generally well suited for understorey plants of forests on base-rich loamy soils as long as closed canopy conditions are maintained. However, many typical forest species are not able to disperse across open fields and their establishment in isolated stands will require sowing or planting.

Long-term consequences of mechanical fuel management for the conservation of Mediterranean forest herb communities

“…These results are in line with studies showing that recovery after major disturbances of typical forest herbs, mainly perennials, may take several decades or even centuries (Bellemare et al 2002;Flinn and Vellend 2005), probably because they require particular regeneration niches that may take a long time for developing (Albrecht and McCarthy 2009), they often lack a persistent seed bank (Decocq et al 2004b;Dölle and Schmidt 2009) and they have low colonization rates from external sources due to limited dispersal capacity (Bellemare et al 2002;Brunet 2007).…”

Does plantation forestry restore biodiversity or create green deserts? A synthesis of the effects of land-use transitions on plant species richness

“…Primary forest consists of forest that has not been cleared, but may have been modified through activities such as selective logging, while secondary forest is naturally regenerating forest on abandoned land previously used for other purposes. European ''ancient forests'' (Proenca et al 2010) or ''ancient woodlands'' (Brunet 2007), which are at least 200 years old, but likely were cleared at some point in the past were included in the primary forest to plantation category as they are distinct from more recent secondary forest and are considered old growth. Degraded or exotic pasture refers to areas highly degraded or with dominantly exotic species used for grazing, including one study, which examined the effects of afforestation of degraded desert grazing areas (ElKeblawy and Ksiksi 2005).…”

“…We included both direct and indirect comparisons in these studies in order to not lose valuable knowledge regarding the capacity of plantations to serve as restoration tools. While the intermediate land use and land use history will clearly influence biodiversity outcomes (Ito et al 2004;Lee et al 2005;Brunet 2007;Soo et al 2009), these cases were included in order to not lose information and to be able to compare indirect and direct comparisons. Those transitions involving direct comparisons and those with an intermediate land use are clearly indicated in Appendix 1 (see Electronic supplementary material).…”

The effects of urban or rural landscape context and distance from the edge on native woodland plant communities

“…Many studies have focused on the influence of edges on the distribution of forest plant species but mainly in a rural context (Brunet 2007;Honnay et al 1999aHonnay et al , 1999cHonnay et al , 2002Jacquemyn et al 2001;Kolb and Dieckmann 2004). The degree of edge influence depends on edge characteristics (i.e.…”