TY  - JOUR
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Socher, Stephanie
A1  - Baumbach, Henryk
A1  - Buscot, Francois
A1  - Gockel, Sonja
A1  - Hemp, Andreas
A1  - Hessenmöller, Dominik
A1  - Kalko, Elisabeth K. V.
A1  - Linsenmair, K. Eduard
A1  - Pfeiffer, Simone
A1  - Pommer, Ulf
A1  - Schöning, Ingo
A1  - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef
A1  - Seilwinder, Claudia
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
A1  - Wells, Konstans
A1  - Fischer, Markus
T1  - High plant species richness indicates management-related disturbances rather than the conservation status of forests
JF  - Basic and applied ecology : Journal of the Gesellschaft für Ökologie
N2  - There is a wealth of smaller-scale studies on the effects of forest management on plant diversity. However, studies comparing plant species diversity in forests with different management types and intensity, extending over different regions and forest stages, and including detailed information on site conditions are missing. We studied vascular plants on 1500 20 m x 20 m forest plots in three regions of Germany (Schwabische Alb, Hainich-Dun, Schorfheide-Chorin). In all regions, our study plots comprised different management types (unmanaged, selection cutting, deciduous and coniferous age-class forests, which resulted from clear cutting or shelterwood logging), various stand ages, site conditions, and levels of management-related disturbances. We analyzed how overall richness and richness of different plant functional groups (trees, shrubs, herbs, herbaceous species typically growing in forests and herbaceous light-demanding species) responded to the different management types. On average, plant species richness was 13% higher in age-class than in unmanaged forests, and did not differ between deciduous age-class and selection forests. In age-class forests of the Schwabische Alb and Hainich-Dun, coniferous stands had higher species richness than deciduous stands. Among age-class forests, older stands with large quantities of standing biomass were slightly poorer in shrub and light-demanding herb species than younger stands. Among deciduous forests, the richness of herbaceous forest species was generally lower in unmanaged than in managed forests, and it was even 20% lower in unmanaged than in selection forests in Hainich-Dun. Overall, these findings show that disturbances by management generally increase plant species richness. This suggests that total plant species richness is not suited as an indicator for the conservation status of forests, but rather indicates disturbances.
KW  - Biodiversity Exploratories
KW  - Coniferous plantations
KW  - Disturbance
KW  - Ellenberg indicator values
KW  - Forest management
KW  - Selection vs. age-class forests
KW  - Silviculture
KW  - Standing biomass
KW  - Typical forest species
KW  - Unmanaged vs. managed forests
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2013.06.001
SN  - 1439-1791
VL  - 14
IS  - 6
SP  - 496
EP  - 505
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Jena
ER  -