1,721,106 research outputs found
On the terms used to refer to 'natural' forests: a response to Veen et al..
No full textThe importance of harmonizing the group of terms used to indicate ‘natural’ forests is reported in several studies. In a recent paper the term virgin forest is proposed as a unifying concept for forests which are not influenced by man in their development. In response to that paper my aim is to clarify the terms virgin and old-growth. My response focuses on two points: the term virgin forest is generally used to indicate forests that have not been influenced by people even in the distant past, therefore something different from what described by the authors; the definition drawn up for the proposed term substantially overlaps with the definition of old-growth forest resulting from a long history of studies on this theme. I think that the overlap between the two analyzed terms can ultimately only increase the existing confusion on this group of forest terms
Testing for differences in beta diversity with asymmetric dissimilarities
No full textin this paper, expanding on a well-known connection between Whittaker's beta diversity and multivariate dissimilarity coefficients, a simple test for differences in beta diversity among different sets of plots is proposed. Being based on any suitable (not necessarily symmetric) plot-to-plot dissimilarity coefficient the test is appropriate for analyzing multivariate data that are usually zero-inflated due to the large number of rare species and for which the number of variables (species) is typically larger than the number of observations (plots). To illustrate the proposed test in practice, we used data from two beech forests with different management history in Abruzzo (central Italy). (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Beta diversity for functional ecology
No full textThe utility of biodiversity measures that incorporate pairwise species functional differences is becoming increasingly recognized. Functional diversity is regarded as the key for linking community composition to ecosystem processes like productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, or stability when subject to perturbations. Therefore, several indices have been proposed to measure the functional diversity of a given species assemblage. The principle behind these measures is that a species assemblage with high functional overlap among species has a lower functional diversity than an assemblage with low functional overlap. On the other hand, the variability in the species functional characters among different species assemblages (i.e., functional beta diversity) has received much less attention. The aim of this paper is thus to discuss a general framework for calculating functional beta diversity from plot-to-plot functional dissimilarity matrices. To illustrate our proposal we use data from two beech forest stands with different management histories in central Italy. The results of our analysis show that, though the two stands are significantly different from one another in terms of their species functional traits, the difference in their functional beta diversity values is only marginally significant. These results are related to the characteristic scale at which ecological variations occur in the two stands
Notulae alla checklist della flora vascolare italiana, Notula 1481. Soldanella calabrella Kress.
No full text
Le foreste vetuste nei Parchi Nazionali d’Italia
No full textOld-growth forests in the Italian National Parks. Italian old-growth forests have never been studied through a national project. In Italy thousands of years of forests exploita- tion suggested the complete absence of forests with old-growth characteristics. In the last decades, the abandonment of the for- ested areas more difficult to harvest allows the presence of for- est with old-growth features.
This study, aims to find forests with these features within Italian National Parks, to classify them through a phytosociological analysis and to define their structure. Through interviews with local Forest Service and Parks em- ployees, the fieldwork of botanist and forest scientist list of 68 forests has been defined. These areas have been characterized from a vegetational and a structural (living and dead wood) point of view
The role of plant sociology in the study and management of European forest ecosystems
Full text linkForest composition is a faithful indicator of the stressors and disturbances that influence forest ecosystems, and it should be accounted for in Sustainable Forest Management policies. Indeed, the classification of forest ecosystems in forest types is considered as a key tool to improve the assessment and monitoring of forest biological diversity, and for the definition of management guidelines. Accordingly, the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe has recognized the need of developing a pan-European forest classification in forest types, and has identified indicators of Sustainable Forest Management that should be applied by forest types. The classification of vegetation has always been among the main aims of the plant sociology. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of plant species composition, performed through the plant sociological approach, condenses compositional and structural information within a hierarchical system, and expresses all historical, sociological and habitat factors that influence the actual and potential vegetation. In a modern perspective the integration of plant sociology and ecological analysis represents a key to a hierarchical land classification and to the understanding of vegetation dynamics; furthermore the long history of plant sociology determined the availability of large datasets of vegetation data throughout Europe. Starting from these considerations, in this paper we briefly describe how plant sociology could represent a tool for the assessment of the indicators of SFM that should be applied by forest types, giving insights on how this discipline could contribute to the assessment of each of these indicators
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