Abstract
In contemporary forest management, also of commercial forests, threshold values are widely used for consideration of biodiversity conservation. Here, we present various aspects of dead-wood threshold values. We review published and unpublished dead-wood threshold data from European lowland beech–oak, mixed-montane, and boreo-alpine spruce–pine forests separately to provide managers of European forests with a baseline for management decisions for their specific forest type. Our review of dead-wood threshold data from European forests revealed 36 critical values with ranges of 10–80 m3 ha−1 for boreal and lowland forests and 10–150 m3 ha−1 for mixed-montane forests, with peak values at 20–30 m3 ha−1 for boreal coniferous forests, 30–40 m3 ha−1 for mixed-montane forests, and 30–50 m3 ha−1 for lowland oak–beech forests. We then expand the focus of dead-wood threshold analyses to community composition. We exemplify the two major statistical methods applied in ecological threshold analysis to stimulate forest researchers to analyze more of their own data with a focus on thresholds. Finally, we discuss further directions of dead-wood threshold analysis. We anticipate that further investigations of threshold values will provide a more comprehensive picture of critical ranges for dead wood, which is urgently needed for an ecological and sustainable forestry.
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We thank Karen A. Brune for linguistic revision of the manuscript and Thibault Lachat, Christophe Bouget and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Müller, J., Bütler, R. A review of habitat thresholds for dead wood: a baseline for management recommendations in European forests. Eur J Forest Res 129, 981–992 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0400-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0400-5