Conservation value indicators of forests and forest-like habitats in historic agricultural landscapes
2012
Liira, Jaan (Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu (Estonia)) | Lõhmus, Kertu (Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu (Estonia)) | Paal, Taavi (Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu (Estonia)) | Kalda, Rauno (Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu (Estonia))
The major challenge in forest biodiversity conservation lies in the loss of the high quality habitats. A solution can be in finding substitution habitats for forest-dwelling species. The cultural and aesthetic importance of old manor (castle) parks is widely known, but their biodiversity value is still insufficiently estimated. We explored whether densely wooded parks can be considered as forest-like habitats suitable for forest specific species. We surveyed old densely wooded parks around manors and compared their complex of structural and biodiversity indicators with neighbouring forest stands, and surveyed forest-corridor transects in central and southern Estonia. Studied indicators described stand structure, dead wood types and forest related biodiversity. We found that the studied park fragments do resemble old deciduous stands. In fact, park stands have higher estimates for various indicators and their compound indices except for dead wood index which is higher in forests. The latter can be expected due to the more intensive management of park stands. Forest species richness and the proportion of common forest species were almost the same in parks and forests. We conclude that old closed-canopy stands in parks can function as semi-natural forest habitats, but over-intensive management of these parks can jeopardize the continuation of their special biodiversity conservation service. In forest land, broad-leaved and mixed stands should be restored instead of secondary post-clear-cut stands and mono-species conifer plantations.
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