The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Forest–Heathland Communities over 60 Years in Fontainebleau, France

Abstract

According to the EU Habitats Directive, heathlands are "natural habitats of community interest". Heathland management aims at conserving these habitats threatened by various changes, including successional processes leading to forest vegetation. We investigate the dynamics of woody species to the detriment of heathland over a period of 60 years in the Fontainebleau forest and we examine the effects of soil types, soil depth and topography parameters on heathland stability. We assess changes in forest cover between 1946 and 2003 by comparing vegetation maps derived from aerial photographs coupled to GIS analyses. The results show the loss of more than 75% of heathland during 1946-2003 due to tree colonisation of abandoned heathland. We detected differences in the dynamics of colonisation between coniferous and deciduous trees. The colonisation of heathland by coniferous species was faster over the last 20 years of our study period. Tree encroachment was faster in north-facing areas and in areas of acidic luvisols. While this dynamic was very slow in acid sandstone soils, heathland stability was more important in shallow soils on flat and south facing areas. Our study has the potential to assist land managers in selecting those heathland areas that will be easier to conserve and/or to restore by focusing on areas and

Large‐scale and fine‐grained mapping of heathland habitats using open‐source remote sensing data

“…While the combined crisp map may be unreliable for estimating the area and range of heathland habitats under Article 17 of the EU Habitats Directive (Röschel et al., 2020), suitability maps are of great value for supporting field surveys but also identifying suitable sites for restoration, especially outside protected areas where knowledge of habitat distribution is still insufficient. Although the spatial resolution of Sentinel‐2 images is adequate to identify heathland habitats, the use of airborne remote sensing data with sub‐metric spatial resolution is still needed to finely characterize their inner structure (Schmidt et al., 2017) and dynamics (Mobaied et al., 2015).…”

The interplay of nutrients and tree invasion shapes the plant community in heathland habitats

“…Kepfer-Rojas et al selected a heathland that has been unmanaged for over a century, but with unknown impediments to successional changes that limited tree invasion. In other areas, such as coastal western Spain, vegetation rapidly changes after abandonment (Fag undez 2016), and management is needed at some level of intensity to maintain heathland structure in south England (Cordingley et al 2015), Scotland (Britton et al 2016), Ireland (Coll et al 2016) and France (Mobaied et al 2015).…”

Spatial Analysis as a Transformative Technology for Decision-Making in Environmental Domains

“…Spatial interpolation is also used by Mobaied et al [5] to create a soil depth surface map, which in addition to soil type, slope and aspect, are used to investigate their effects on heathland stability. Using transition matrices to trace landscape change over time and spatial methods to analyze the association between the aforementioned factors and the dynamics of heathland has helped to unpack the complicated changes that have occurred in a section of the Fontainbleau Forest in France over the last 60 years.…”