Changes in forest structure in the Bavarian Forest National Park : an evaluation after 10 years of the BIOKLIM-Project

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Hilmers, Torben ; Bässler, Claus ; Friess, Nicolas ; Heurich, Marco ; Müller, Jörg ; Seifert, Linda:
Changes in forest structure in the Bavarian Forest National Park : an evaluation after 10 years of the BIOKLIM-Project.
In: Silva Gabreta. Bd. 24 (2018) . - S. 161-170.
ISSN 1211-7420

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Abstract

Biodiversity is diminishing globally at an unprecedented rate in times of intensive land use and ongoing climate change. Since biodiversity is related to important ecosystem functions and services it is nowadays the goal by law to maintain and improve biodiversity. In this perspective, the BIOKLIM-Project carried out two large forest structure and biodiversity surveys within the Bavarian Forest National Park in 2006 and 2016 to provide a broad range of data to assess the effects of a changing forest structure and climate on species and communities across different taxonomic groups. In this paper, we present the changes in forest structure between the two surveys. Results showed that study plots which were formerly affected from disruptive events such as storms and bark beetle infestations made progress in succession and thus occupy higher classes of forest succession. Furthermore, the results showed that disruptive events again caused disturbances, especially at the high elevations of the Bavarian Forest National Park. Hence, disturbances mainly affected spruce. Anyway, since the forest systems, with the exception of disturbances that might occur, are inert systems, the forest structure changed only slightly on the study plots between the two years of investigation.