Do not drop OLD for NEW: conservation needs both forest continuity and stand maturity
2019
Janssen, Philippe | Bergès, Laurent | Fuhr, M. | Paillet, Yoan | Laboratoire des EcoSystèmes et des Sociétés en Montagne (UR LESSEM) ; Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Grenoble Alpes [2016-2019] (UGA [2016-2019])-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (Fédération OSUG)
International audience
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]英语. To assess forest conservation value, McMullin and Wiersma (2019) recently proposed a focus on forest‐cover continuity over time rather than tree age. They also suggested that region‐specific lists of lichens could be used as bioindicators of forest continuity. We fully support the need to account for legacies of past land use to better explain contemporary biodiversity patterns, and we appreciate the authors’ initiative. However, we believe that the way in which they defined forest continuity could be misleading, especially for forest managers and conservation biologists. Indeed, the authors used similar terminology (eg old‐growth, old tree, tree age, old forest, forest age) to describe two concepts that not only influence biodiversity in different ways but also are crucial to disentangle for conservation purposes: stand maturity and forest continuity
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