Background and Aims of the meeting
Dead wood is a central element in natural forests. Its importance has become more and more obvious and appreciated because the amount of dead wood has considerably decreased as a result of intensive forest management. Decrease of dead wood has caused decline of many saproxylic organisms, therefore leading to reduced species diversity in managed forests. The recent trend to increase forest biodiversity by applying biodiversity-oriented forestry practices including forest restoration and green-tree retention have created needs for information on species dependent on dead wood. Such information is needed for efficient planning and development of forest management practices and species conservation measures.
The Nordic Saproxylic Network (NSN) is a network of experts with thorough knowledge about saproxylic species. The network consists of professional scientists and non-professional experts from the Nordic countries, with contact persons in Baltic states, Central Europe and Great Britain.The aims are 1) to develop the knowledge basis about saproxylic species and make this knowledge available for different user groups, 2) to maintain and develop contacts between saproxylic experts and to update each other about knowledge advancements in this expertise field. A central target of the network is to develop an Internet-based database on saproxylic species and their habitat requirements in order to make the information easily available for researchers, nature management and forestry, public authorities and others needing such information.
The NSN was established in a meeting at Ekenäs, Sweden 7.-8. February 2004. The meeting was a follow up of a Swedish-Norwegian project that created a database with information for several thousands saproxylic species (mainly fungi and beetles). In this project it was realized that there exists a huge amount of information and expertise in the Nordic countries on a largely shared species pool. The Ekenäs meeting attracted 30 experts from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and was convened by Dr. Jogeir Stokland (Oslo, Norway) and Dr. Anders Dahlberg (ArtDatabanken, Uppsala, Sweden). It was agreed among the participants to establish the network and to continue the development of the database on a Nordic basis.
The situation for database work is seemingly less advanced in Finland compared to Sweden and Norway, and therefore a need for national organization of the database work was found necessary. In order to develop the database work in Finland, the Finnish coordinator group of NSN will organize this seminar “Saproxylic species in Fennoscandian forests - gathering ecological knowledge for applied use". Here we will combine the aims of knowledge dissemination and to gather Finnish researchers and interest groups working on saproxylic organisms to initiate compilation of the database in Finland. More specifically, the aims of the meeting are 1) to exchange information on how dead wood and saproxylic species are taken into consideration in current forest management practices, and what are the needs of practitioners for further information, 2) to present recent advances of research connected to saproxylic species, and 3) to stimulate compilation of the Nordic Saproxylic database in Finland. The objective of the meeting is to bring together Nordic researchers and representatives of different forestry organizations and other interest groups.
Timetable and venue
The meeting will take place in Wed 7 th – Fri 9 th December 2005, at Lammi Biological Station, University of Helsinki. The Biological Station is located about 150 km to the north of Helsinki, about halfway between Hämeenlinna and Lahti towns in southern Finland.
Organizing committee
- Sanna Laaka-Lindberg (University of Helsinki, Finland) laaka@mappi.helsinki.fi
- Juha Siitonen (Finnish Forest Research Institute) juha.siitonen@metla.fi
- Reijo Penttilä (Finnish Environment Centre) reijo.penttila@ymparisto.fi
- Jogeir Stokland (Norwegian Institute of Land Inventory) jogeir.stokland@nijos.no
- Anders Dahlberg (SLU, ArtDatabanken, Sweden) anders.dahlberg@ArtData.slu.se
