Abstract
The present research examines the joint effects of climate change and management on the dead wood dynamics of the main tree species of the Finnish boreal forests via a forest ecosystem simulator. Tree processes are analyzed in stands subject to multiple biotic and abiotic environmental factors. A special focus is on the implications for biodiversity conservation thereof. Our results predict that in boreal forests, climate change will speed up tree growth and accumulation ending up in a higher stock of dead wood available as habitat for forest-dwelling species, but the accumulation processes will be much smaller in the working landscape than in set-asides. Increased decomposition rates driven by climate change for silver birch and Norway spruce will likely reduce the time the dead wood stock is available for dead wood-associated species. While for silver birch, the decomposition rate will be further increased in set-aside in relation to stands under ordinary management, for Norway spruce, set-asides can counterbalance the enhanced decomposition rate due to climate change thereby permitting a longer persistence of different decay stages of dead wood.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Academy of Finland (Project Number: 21000012421). We are grateful to Pasi Reunanen and Maria Triviño De la Cal, for improving the manuscript with their comments. This paper was initially submitted, reviewed and revised in Peerage of Science (http://www.peerageofscience.org/), and we are grateful to an anonymous peer for constructive comments.
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Mazziotta, A., Mönkkönen, M., Strandman, H. et al. Modeling the effects of climate change and management on the dead wood dynamics in boreal forest plantations. Eur J Forest Res 133, 405–421 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-013-0773-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-013-0773-3