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Aboveground and Belowground Consequences of Long-Term Forest Retrogression in the Timeframe of Millennia and Beyond

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Old-Growth Forests

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 207))

Abstract

Old growth forests that have not experienced significant disturbance for several millennia often undergo ‘ecosystem retrogression’, which is characterised by reduced availability of key nutrients and a large decline in aboveground productivity. In this chapter, the consequences of ecosystem retrogression for community and ecosystem processes are explored through studies conducted over the past 12 years on forested lake islands in northern Sweden that vary tremendously in historical fire regime, and undergo retrogression in the prolonged absence of fire. The ecological effects of retrogression are then evaluated in a more general manner by considering changes that occur in six well established long-term forested chronosequences around the world that each include retrogressive stages. These chronosequences collectively illustrate how aboveground and belowground ecosystem processes consistently decline in forests during retrogression as a result of phosphorus becomingly increasingly limiting relative to nitrogen, and point to similar ecological responses to retrogression in boreal, temperate and subtropical forests.

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Acknowledgements

The work on the Swedish lake islands has benefitted from collaborations with Olle Zackrisson, Greger Hörnberg, Marie-Charlotte Nilsson, Micael Jonsson and Anna Lagerström. The work on the other five chronosequences has benefitted from collaborations with Richard Bardgett, Lars Walker and Duane Peltzer, and sampling trips to specific sequences has been made possible with help from Heraldo Farrington, Peter Vitousek, the late Cliff Thompson, and Joe Walker. Yves Bergeron and Gerd Gleixner provided helpful comments on a draft version of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901-83, Umeå, Sweden

    David A. Wardle

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  1. David A. Wardle
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Correspondence to David A. Wardle .

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    Wardle, D.A. (2009). Aboveground and Belowground Consequences of Long-Term Forest Retrogression in the Timeframe of Millennia and Beyond. In: Wirth, C., Gleixner, G., Heimann, M. (eds) Old-Growth Forests. Ecological Studies, vol 207. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92706-8_9

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