Primeval and quasi-primeval forests of the Carpathian National Nature Park: diversity, dynamics, management

Primeval forest ecosystems are natural examples of maintaining the stability and productivity of forests in any site conditions, as well as standards for forest biodiversity and combating invasive species. The interest in their scientific study in Europe has grown sharply after the inclusion of Ukrainian and Slovak primeval forests in the UNESCO World Natural Heritage List in 2007. In 2017, Ukraine adopted a law to improve the protection of primeval, quasi-primeval and natural forests, and in 2018 – appropriate methods for their identification and transfer to the NPF objects. That allowed identifying almost 100 thousand hectares of such forests, of which almost 50 thousand hectares are primeval. Therefore, urgent scientific tasks are their state monitoring and development of proposals for improving the system of their protection and management.to improve their protection and management system. The second inventory of old-growth forests conducted in the Carpathian National Nature Park in 2024, and the analysis of its results is the subject of this publication. Field studies of 219 forest plots for compliance of their indicators with the approved criteria and indicators made it possible to assess the dynamics of their quantitative changes. It was found that the share of primeval and quasi- primeval forests in the Carpathian NNP is about 7%, of which about 1% is primeval forests. Of the six main species of these forests, spruce (47%) and mountain pine (34%) dominate, and within sixteen forest types – moist oligotrophic mountain-pine (34%) and moist mesotrophic pure spruce (24%) forest types dominate. In general, the old-growth forests of the park are native three-layered monodominant stands with normal density, low productivity, low stock of standing dead trees and a sufficient number of the native species young growth. The structure of these forests in the Carpathian NNP is variable and determined by the main species: the number of layers varies from 2 (Green alder forests) to 4 (European beech & Silver fir forests); the average height – from 1.5 (Green alder forests) to 35 (Silver fir forests) meters; the volume of wood from 5 (Green alder forests) to 700 (Silver fir forests) m3/ha; the number of species in the composition from 2 (Green alder forests) to 7 (European beech forests). No significant dependence of the volume of the standing dead trees on the proportion of the main species was found, and neither was there any dependence for the amount of young growth numbers. And the approximation reliability of these dependencies by polynomial curve is <0.0091. The diversity of higher vascular plants in the park's virgin and quasi-virgin forests is 70 species and it ranges from 12 (Mountain pine forests) to 33 (Silver fir forests) species. The discrepancies revealed in the results of two inventories of the park's old-growth forests allowed us to propose the following measures: clearly prescribe in the legislative framework the procedure for old-growth forests converting into commercial forests; significantly improve the situation with the availability of information boards regarding their protection and use.