2009), and some authors have already addressed the conversion problem, most of them focusing on lowland deciduous forests in central Europe ( Baeten et al. 2006 Coppini and Hermanin 2007).įagus sylvatica forests have been intensely studied from different points of view ( Bartha et al. As a consequence, many CWSs have been almost completely abandoned and most of them have been converted to HFs ( Ciancio et al. These processes are also widespread in Italy, where the progressive depopulation and socioeconomic changes occurring over the last 60 years in the mountainous areas of the Apennine chain have led to a pronounced drop in local demand for small-sized timber, firewood and charcoal ( Bracchetti et al. However, in recent years changing economic and societal demands in many parts of Europe have led to a progressive decline in CWS management in favor of modern HF management regimes ( Baeten et al. Traditionally, these forests have been managed for centuries as coppices or CWSs. Among the temperate broadleaved forests, those dominated by beech ( Fagus sylvatica) are some of the most extensive and widespread throughout Europe, from Sweden and Norway to its southern limit in Italy, where beech dominate the Apennine chain and afford the most common woody resource, exploited for millennia. By contrast, HF systems are characterized by stands of single-stemmed trees that originate from seed the rotation times for these systems are longer than those for CWS stands. Single-stemmed trees (standards) are retained in a sparse canopy for one or more rotations, in order to ensure genetic diversity and a certain amount of canopy cover.
![coppice vegetation coppice vegetation](https://www.lioncoppice.org/images/stories/plants/lion_coppice_oak_tree.jpg)
In a CWS system, young shoots are cut down on short rotations and new shoots re-sprout from dormant buds on the cut stumps. The most common management types already existed in the 19th century, when many forests were managed as single coppice or coppice-with-standards (CWS), and some as high forests (HF) harvested tree by tree ( Oldeman 1990 Piussi 1994). 2005).Įuropean temperate forests have been exploited throughout human history. The effects of forest management depend mainly on its intensity and extent, both of which induce a disturbance regime in the understory ( Barbier et al. Forest management modifies forest structure, and therefore may play an important role in shaping species diversity and promoting ecological stability ( Decocq et al. Tree canopy and size, age, stem diameters and density all influence such environmental conditions as light, temperature and moisture in the understory and the nutrient flux, which in turn could have an impact on species composition and competition processes ( du Bus de Warnaffe and Lebrun 2004 Thimonier et al. In forest communities, structural features play an important role in modulating floristic composition and ecosystem functions ( Neumann and Starlinger 2001). Overall, our findings provide the first insights supporting that, in a Mediterranean montane context, old coppice conversion to HF could over time improve the species diversity in these habitats and help maintain good conservation status of the typical mature beech forests.ĭiagnostic species, habitat directive 92/43 EEC, Mediterranean beech forests, rarefaction curves, Rényi diversity profiles, silviculture, understory diversity, understory richness INTRODUCTION Conversely, the dense canopy of the old coppice appears to affect the understory richness by reducing the presence of light-demanding species, but still without a complete recolonization of the shade-tolerant species.
![coppice vegetation coppice vegetation](https://bugwoodcloud.org/images/768x512/2714050.jpg)
These finding were related to the cut regime, which favor a constant canopy cover over time and thus the maintenance of more stable microclimatic conditions, promoting the higher abundance and evenness of shade-tolerant and vernal species. Our results showed that, though the old coppices have a slightly higher number of understory species in general, the HF stands have greater mean species richness in both understory and diagnostic species, the latter being more evenly distributed inside the community.