Metla Project 3248
Restoring of virgin forest charasteristics after burn-beating and forestry
Duration: 1999-2002
Keywords: biodiversity, forest development, forest management history, virgin forest
Objectives
One of the main problems in conservation planning of Finnish old-growth forests has been, how and when the characters of pristine forest will be restored after human impact. There are only few researches about this. The study area, Paljakka, in the Kainuu and western Karelia hilly section in the middle boreal vegetation zone, is an excellent place to research this subject, since the early forestry is well known here.
The aim of this research was to study how natural state of spruce forests has been restored after old slash and burnings and forest fires before 1930th delectively light loggings later more effective organised cuttings. Controls were in virgin spruce forests and in minutely forested herb-rich forests.
Each group included five sample plots (100 m x 10 m), in which the living and dead standing trees and fallen loggs were counted. The forest and paludified vegetation types and their vascular plants and mosses were invented. The wood fungus was invented on all stems and total coverage of epiphytic lichens was measured on living stems.
Results
Forest fire areas can be be separated from uncut forests, despite over 100 years from the last fires. In burned areas the mean height, breast diameter (DBH) and volume of living spruces were only about half of the corresponding values in uncut forests, and there were six times higher amount of living deciduous wood in burned forests. Burned forests could be differed from uncut forests also by dead standing snags and fallen loggs and by wood fungus on them also. Also the composition of vascular plants and mosses differed from each other.
The number and volume of living trees were roughly the same in uncut, in 1930th – 1940th harvested and in earlier selectively light logged forests, but number of the large-sized spruces and the volume of deciduous wood differed. In uncut forests there were included to the greatest size-class (DBH > 40 cm) clearly more living spruce wood than in cutted forests. The volume of dead standing and laying spruces and the number of natural stumps increased in cutted forests, but the number of wood fungus species was near the same in those forests cutted long time ago.
Project leader:
Poikolainen, Jarmo
The Finnish Forest Research Institute,
Oulu Unit,
PL 413, FI-90014 Oulun yliopisto, FINLAND
Phone: +358 29 532 3753
E-mail: jarmo.poikolainen@metla.fi
Other researchers:
Kukko-oja, Kari, MU (1999,2001-2002)
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Updated 12.06.2012
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