ArticlePDF Available

Quantifying Natural Disturbances Using a Large‐Scale Dendrochronological Reconstruction to Guide Forest Management

Authors:
Vojtěch Čada at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Vojtěch Čada
Volodymyr Trotsiuk at Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL
Volodymyr Trotsiuk
Pavel Janda at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Pavel Janda
Martin Mikoláš at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Martin Mikoláš
Show all 24 authorsHide
Download full-text PDF
Read full-text
Download citation

Figures

Figures - available from: The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Access to this full-text is provided by Wiley.
Learn more
Content available from The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Article e01759 October 2020 1Photo Gallery
QUANTIFYING NATURAL DISTURBANCES USING
A LARGE-SCALE DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL
RECONSTRUCTION TO GUIDE FOREST MANAGEMENT
Vojtěch Čada , Volodymyr Trotsiuk , Pavel Janda, Martin Mikoláš, Radek Bače, Thomas A. Nagel,
Robert C. Morrissey, Alan J. Tepley , Ondřej Vostarek , Krešimir Begović, Oleh Chaskovskyy,
Martin Dušátko, Ondrej Kameniar, Daniel Kozák, Jana Lábusová, Jakub Málek, Peter Meyer,
Joseph L. Pettit, Jonathan S. Schurman, Kristýna Svobodová, Michal Synek, Marius Teodosiu,
Karol Ujházy, and Miroslav Svoboda
© 2020 The Authors. The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Ecological Society of America.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Study Description
Quantitative estimates of historical disturbances are essential to guide forest
management aimed at sustainability of ecosystem functions and biodiversity. We
quantified past disturbance severity, patch size, and stand proportion disturbed in
European primary mountain spruce forests using dendrochronology. We found
that continuous gradients from low- to high-severity and small- to large-size dis-
turbance events affected these forests. In addition to the importance of small
disturbance events, moderate-scale and moderate-severity events were also
common and they represented more than 50% of the total disturbed area. Our
results provide rigorous baseline data for future ecological research, decisions
within biodiversity conservation, and ecological silviculture.
Čada, V., V. Trotsiuk, P. Janda, M. Mikoláš, R. Bače, T. A. Nagel, R. C. Morrissey, A. J. Tepley, O. Vostarek, K. Begović, O. Chaskovskyy, M. Dušátko,
O. Kameniar, D. Kozák, J. Lábusová, J. Málek, P. Meyer, J. L. Pettit, J. S. Schurman, K. Svobodová, M. Synek, M. Teodosiu, K. Ujházy, and M. Svoboda.
2020. Quantifying Natural Disturbances Using a Large-Scale Dendrochronological Reconstruction to Guide Forest Management. Bull Ecol Soc Am
101(4):e01759. https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1759
2 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 101(4) Article e01759
Photo Gallery
Photo 1. Natural disturbances in temperate forests span continuous gradients from single-tree
mortality up to large-scale and severe events over hundreds and thousands of hectares (Low Tatras,
Slovakia). Photo credit: Ondrej Kameniar.
Article e01759 October 2020 3Photo Gallery
Photo 2. Heterogeneous patterns of forest structure result often from natural disturbances. These
natural events provide an important biological legacies for forest functioning and biodiversity (Mara-
mureš, Romania). Photo credit: Ondrej Kameniar.
4 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 101(4) Article e01759
Photo Gallery
Photo 3. Moderate-scale disturbance events affect large areas of temperate zone. Some would
consider such events to be the most important disturbances in temperate forests (High Tatras,
Slovakia). Photo credit: Ondrej Kameniar.
Article e01759 October 2020 5Photo Gallery
Photo 4. Moderate-scale disturbance events create heterogeneous forest structures because such
events kill many trees, but many trees survive, creating a spatially variable biological legacy (High Tatras,
Slovakia). Photo credit: Ondrej Kameniar.
6 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 101(4) Article e01759
Photo Gallery
Photo 5. The trees have died but their role in the ecosystem continues; after tree death, stems are
used by many other organisms (High Tatras, Slovakia). Photo credit: Ondrej Kameniar.
These photographs illustrate the article “Quantifying natural disturbances using a large-scale
dendrochronological reconstruction to guide forest management” by Čada et al. published in
Ecological Applications. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2189.
Available via license: CC BY
Content may be subject to copyright.
... In medium elevations (500-1,200 m a. s. l.), the forest was originally a mixture of many species, but mostly dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica). At the highest altitudes, near the upper treeline (1,200-1,600 m a. s. l.), forests are naturally dominated by spruce (Mirek 2013;Čada et al. 2020). However, due to the long history of human settlement, most of the Central European forests have been subjected to more or less intensive use (Mikoláš et al. 2019). ...
... In the Central European mountain primary forests, the main disturbance agents are windstorms, bark beetles (most importantly Ips typographus and to a smaller extent other insect species), amongst other factors including avalanches, ice storms and large herbivores (Nagel et al. 2013;Kulakowski et al. 2017;Synek et al. 2020). Disturbances predominantly affect forest ecosystems by creating patches of dead trees varying in spatial extent and severity (Pickett and White 1985;Čada et al. 2020). In contrast with managed forests, dead trees and their components remain in unmanaged forest as disturbance legacies (Seidl et al. 2014), contribute to the total carbon pool (Commarmot et al. 2005;Glatthorn et al. 2018), help facilitate regeneration after disturbance (Zielonka 2006;Michalová et al. 2017), whilst also providing important structural elements for biodiversity (Stokland et al. 2012;Thorn et al. 2017;Kozák et al. 2020). ...
... The recent development of dendrochronological methods has allowed our scientific understanding of the long-term dynamics of Central European mountain primary forests to increase rapidly (e.g. Svoboda et al. 2014;Trotsiuk et al. 2014;Janda et al. 2017;Schurman et al. 2018;Čada et al. 2020;Frankovič et al. 2021). However, large knowledge gaps remain. ...
Spruce- and beech-dominated primary forests in the western Carpathians differ in terms of forest structure and bird assemblages, independently of disturbance regimes
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2023
Mountain spruce- and beech-dominated forests (SDPF and BDPF) are of major importance in temperate Europe. However, information on the differences between their historical disturbance regimes, structures, and biodiversity is still incomplete. To address this knowledge gap, we established 118 circular research plots across 18 primary forest stands. We analysed the disturbance history of the last 250 years by dendrochronological methods and calculated disturbance frequency, severity, and timing. We also measured forest structure (DBH, tree density, volume of deadwood, and other parameters). Breeding bird populations were examined by point count method during the spring seasons 2017–2018 (SDPF) and 2019–2020 (BDPF). Using direct ordination analysis, we compared the disturbance history, structure and bird assemblage in both forest types. While no differences were found regarding disturbance regimes between forest types, forest structure and bird assemblages were significantly different. SDPF had a significantly higher density of cavities and higher canopy openness, while higher tree species richness and more intense regeneration was found in BDPF. Bird assemblage showed higher species richness in BDPF, but lower total abundance. Most bird species which occurred in both forest types were more numerous in spruce-dominated forests, but more species occurred exclusively in BDPF. Further, some SDPF- preferring species were found in naturally disturbed patches in BDPF. We conclude that although natural disturbances are important drivers of primary forest structures, differences in the bird assemblages in the explored primary forest types were largely independent of disturbance regimes.
View
... The replacement of significant fractions of trees following extreme events typically leads to characteristic peaks in age distributions [20]. In contrast, evaluating the long-term impacts of prolonged and, especially, multiple climate anomalies, as well as distinguishing their contributions from local factors, often appears more challenging [21]. ...
Reversal in the Drought Stress Response of the Scots Pine Forest Ecosystem: Local Soil Water Regime as a Key to Improving Climate Change Resilience
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2023
In a changing climate, forest ecosystems have become increasingly vulnerable to continuously exacerbating heat and associated drought conditions. Climate stress resilience is governed by a complex interplay of global, regional, and local factors, with hydrological conditions being among the key players. We studied a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forest ecosystem located near the southern edge of the boreal ecotone, which is particularly subjected to frequent and prolonged droughts. By comparing the dendrochronological series of pines growing in apparently contrasting hydrological conditions ranging from the waterlogged peat bog area to the dry soil at the surrounding elevations, we investigated how the soil water regime affects the climate response and drought stress resilience of the forest ecosystem. We found that in the dry land area, a significant fraction of the trees were replaced after two major climate extremes: prolonged drought and extremely low winter temperatures. The latter has also been followed by a three- to ten-fold growth reduction of the trees that survived in the next year, whereas no similar effect has been observed in the peat bog area. Multi-scale detrended partial cross-correlation analysis (DPCCA) indicated that tree-ring width (TRW) was negatively correlated with spring and summer temperatures and positively correlated with the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) for the same year. For the elevated dry land area, the above effect extends to interannual scales, indicating that prolonged heatwaves and associated droughts are among the factors that limit tree growth. In marked contrast, in the waterlogged peat bog area, a reversed tendency was observed, with prolonged dry periods as well as warmer springs and summers over several consecutive years, leading to increasing tree growth with a one- to three-year time lag. Altogether, our results indicate that the pessimal conditions of a warming climate could become favorable through the preservation of the soil water regime.
View
Temperate Primary Forest Biomass Accumulates over Centuries-Long Time Frames
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2023
  • ECOSYSTEMS
Primary forests provide critical climate regulation functions through the capture and storage of carbon in biomass reservoirs. The capacity of primary forests to sustain biomass levels and the possible consequences of warming-induced increases in extreme disturbances are unresolved questions. We investigated the drivers of biomass accumulation in European primary mountain forests in the Carpathians. We used inventory datasets from a continental-scale survey of remnant primary forests to quantify levels of aboveground live and dead biomass across mixed beech and spruce forest types. We formulated nonlinear regression models to estimate the effects of abiotic and biotic factors, including plot-level disturbance history and tree age using dendrochronological methods. Our analyses show that biomass stocks are comparable with stocks present in other primary forests of temperate regions. Highest mean total biomass in mixed beech forests was in southern landscapes (491 ± 81 Mg ha⁻¹) and western for spruce forests (388 ± 106 Mg ha⁻¹). Forests maintained positive biomass accumulation rates over centuries-long time frames, mean plot-level age peaking at ~ 225 years. We demonstrate that primary forests continue to function as carbon sinks at older ages. Preserving the integrity of unmanaged forests serves as an important climate mitigation strategy.
View
Spatiotemporal Variability in Disturbance Frequency and Severity across Mexico: Evidence from Conifer Tree Rings
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2023
It is critical to understand the ecological processes of forest dynamics by identifying past forest disturbances to take appropriate management actions. Tree-rings are commonly used for this purpose due to their reliability and accuracy. Here, we used a network of ring-width data distributed along a broad ecological gradient for the spatiotemporal identification of forest disturbances in 15 species of 13 sites of young Mexican conifers. We found different spatial and temporal patterns in the occurrence of forest disturbance. The species with the highest disturbance rates were Pinus patula (Ppa; El Jacalón), Pinus montezumae (Pmo; La Cueva), Pinus hartwegii (Phc; Cerro El Moro), and Pinus teocote (Pts; Rancho Joyas del Durazno) of the Gulf of Mexico, and Pinus ayacahuite (Pay; Corral de los Borregos) of the Mexico Center. The highest number of disturbances was found in 1953, 1956, 1976, and 1980; however, we noted that the number of disturbances tended to increase from 1975 to 1990 and particularly from 2000 onwards. The species close to the Gulf of Mexico presented a higher frequency and severity of disturbances than those located close to the Pacific Ocean. Thus, our results demonstrate a spatiotemporal pattern of disturbance events, which deserves further analysis, including regarding the drivers of disturbance. This knowledge is crucial for a better understanding of the dynamics of contemporary species.
View
Synchronised disturbances in spruce- and beech-dominated forests across the largest primary mountain forest landscape in temperate Europe
Article
  • Apr 2023
  • FOREST ECOL MANAG
Understanding temporal and spatial variations in historical disturbance regimes across intact, continuous, and altitudinally diverse primary forest landscapes is imperative to help forecast forest development and adapt forest management in an era of rapid environmental change. Because few complex primary forest landscapes remain in Europe, previous research has largely described disturbance regimes for individual forest types and smaller isolated stands. We studied the largest but still largely unprotected mountain primary forest landscape in temperate Europe, the Fagaraș Mountains of Romania. To describe historical disturbance regimes and synchronicity in disturbance activity and trends between two widespread forest community types, dominated by Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), we established 191 permanent study plots (70 beech; 121 spruce) across 11 valleys, thereby providing information at both stand and landscape levels. We used a dendrochronological approach to reconstruct and describe the spatiotemporal patterns of historical disturbances. We observed a diverse spectrum of disturbance severities and timing across the forest landscape. High-severity disturbances created periods of synchrony in disturbance activity at the landscape scale, while moderate- and low-severity disturbances were asynchronous and random in both spruce- and beech-dominated primary forests. We detected a peak of canopy disturbance across the region at the end of the nineteenth century, with the most important periods of disturbance between the 1890s and 1910s. At the stand scale, we observed periods of synchronised disturbances with varying severities across both forest types. The level of disturbance synchrony varied widely among the stands. The beta regression showed that spruce forests had significantly higher average synchrony and higher between-stand variability of synchrony than the beech-dominated forests. Synchronised disturbances with higher severity were infrequent, but they were critical as drivers of subsequent forest development pathways and dynamics across both forest types. Our results provide valuable insight into future resilience to climate-driven alterations of disturbance regimes in spruce- and beech-dominated mountain temperate forests in the Carpathians. We suggest that conservation efforts should recognize strictly protecting large continuous and altitudinally diversified forest landscapes such as Fagaraș Mts. as a necessary measure to tackle climate change and ensure temporal and spatial structural heterogeneity driven by a wide range of disturbances. The diverse and synchronous disturbance activity among two interconnected forest vegetation types highlights the need for complex spatiotemporal forest management approaches that emulate disturbance synchronicity to foster biodiversity across multiple forest vegetation types within forest landscapes.
View
Response of habitat quality to mixed severity disturbance regime in Norway spruce forests
Article
Full-text available
Natural disturbances change forest habitat quality for many species. As the extent and intensity of natural disturbances may increase under climate change, it is unclear how this increase can affect habitat quality on different spatial scales. To support management tools and policies aiming to prevent habitat loss, we studied how habitat quality develops in the long run depending on the disturbance severity using a space‐for‐time substitution approach. We explored the effects of time since disturbance (0–250 years) and disturbance severity (20%–100% canopy removal) on structure‐based habitat quality indicators in European primary Norway spruce Picea abies forests using 1000 m² circular plots in hierarchical design (a total of 407 plots in 35 stands). Disturbance history was reconstructed from tree cores. Habitat quality indicators were modelled as a function of the severity of the most severe disturbance and the time since this disturbance. We hypothesised that high within‐stand habitat heterogeneity is formed by different successional stages after disturbances of various intensities. The results showed a U‐shaped response of habitat quality to post‐disturbance habitat succession on the plot scale. The decline deepened with disturbance severity. The U‐shape response occurred in: large tree occurrence, amount of standing and lying deadwood, diversity of understory and understory openness. The spatial diversity in disturbance parameters increased spatial diversity of habitat quality on a stand level as expected. This high within‐stand habitat heterogeneity also decreased with increasing age of the most recent disturbance. This suggests that the absence of young successional stages results in the absence of some important elements for biodiversity, for example sun‐exposed snags. Synthesis and applications. Our results demonstrate that currently intensifying natural disturbance regime can consequently result in a lower habitat heterogeneity. In managed spruce forests after natural disturbances, we recommend at least the partial retention of biological legacies to preserve habitat heterogeneity and to avoid uniform and dense plantations resulting in a greater homogenisation. To emulate the natural disturbances pattern, spruce forests should be managed with a wide range of harvested patches of the size limited by a local natural disturbance regime creating spatial heterogeneity.
View
Natural Disturbances are Essential Determinants of Tree-Related Microhabitat Availability in Temperate Forests
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2023
  • ECOSYSTEMS
Assessing the impacts of natural disturbance on the functioning of complex forest systems are imperative in the context of global change. The unprecedented rate of contemporary species extirpations, coupled with widely held expectations that future disturbance intensity will increase with warming, highlights a need to better understand how natural processes structure habitat availability in forest ecosystems. Standardised typologies of tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) have been developed to facilitate assessments of resource availability for multiple taxa. However, natural disturbance effects on TreM diversity have never been assessed. We amassed a comprehensive dataset of TreM occurrences and a concomitant 300-year disturbance history reconstruction that spanned large environmental gradients in temperate primary forests. We used nonlinear analyses to quantify relations between past disturbance parameters and contemporary patterns of TreM occurrence. Our results reveal that natural forest dynamics, characterised
View
A new framework for prognosing forest resources under intensified disturbance impacts: Case of the Czech Republic
Article
  • Nov 2022
  • FOREST ECOL MANAG
Forest management decisions increasingly rely on modelling tools, which help identify future risks, optimize management decisions, and provide a suite of indicators beyond timber production. Here we developed and tested a novel simulation and upscaling framework (SUF) and used it for prognosing forest resources of the Czech Republic (Central Europe), which is currently one of Europe's hotspots of disturbance intensification. The SUF is based on an empirical forest model that simulates the development of 8 240 forest stands representing forest conditions in 206 administrative districts of the Czech Republic. The effect of natural disturbances is considered via empirical species- and age-specific mortality probability (MP) functions parameterized based on the national forest damage reports and remote sensing data. An upscaling procedure was developed to obtain district- and country-wide estimates. We tested this framework for its ability to (i) reproduce the initial forest conditions from the year 2003, (ii) reproduce forest dynamics in 2003–2016 (i.e., before the recent disturbance wave), (iii) reproduce the recent mortality pulse in 2017–2020, and (iv) generate plausible and consistent outputs under several disturbance and management settings in 2003–2050. The SUF reliably reproduced forest dynamics in both testing periods. The country-wide growing stock (GS) simulated for 2004–2050 oscillated around the initial value of 661 mill. m³ if the reference MP and management were considered. Using the elevated MP (corresponding with the recent disturbance period) increased the mean annual mortality rate from 0.78 % to 1.19 % and caused GS to decrease by 21 % in 2050. The wave of elevated mortality lasted 16 years, ceasing in 2033 due to the depletion of vulnerable stands. Reducing the rotation length by 40 % increased the harvests temporarily and caused GS to decrease by 29 and 33 % in 2050 under reference and elevated MP, respectively. At the same time, mortality was reduced by up to 18 % due to the removal of potentially vulnerable stands. The presented SUF is able to accommodate diverse forestry data, reproduce real forest dynamics, and generate outputs that correspond with the national forestry statistics. Flexible adoption of different mortality and management regimes makes it a versatile tool for supporting management decisions and policies. The presented simulations highlighted the negative prospects of the regional forests and the need for a profound transformation of management practices and the regional forest-based sector.
View
The effect of natural disturbances on forest biodiversity: an ecological synthesis
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2022
  • BIOL REV
Disturbances alter biodiversity via their specific characteristics, including severity and extent in the landscape, which act at different temporal and spatial scales. Biodiversity response to disturbance also depends on the community characteristics and habitat requirements of species. Untangling the mechanistic interplay of these factors has guided disturbance ecology for decades, generating mixed scientific evidence of biodiversity responses to disturbance. Understanding the impact of natural disturbances on biodiversity is increasingly important due to human-induced changes in natural disturbance regimes. In many areas, major natural forest disturbances, such as wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks, are becoming more frequent, intense, severe, and widespread due to climate change and land-use change. Conversely, the suppression of natural disturbances threatens disturbance-dependent biota. Using a meta-analytic approach, we analysed a global data set (with most sampling concentrated in temperate and boreal secondary forests) of species assemblages of 26 taxonomic groups, including plants, animals, and fungi collected from forests affected by wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks. The overall effect of natural disturbances on α-diversity did not differ significantly from zero, but some taxonomic groups responded positively to disturbance, while others tended to respond negatively. 2 Mari-Liis Viljur and others Disturbance was beneficial for taxonomic groups preferring conditions associated with open canopies (e.g. hymenopterans and hoverflies), whereas ground-dwelling groups and/or groups typically associated with shady conditions (e.g. epigeic lichens and mycorrhizal fungi) were more likely to be negatively impacted by disturbance. Across all taxonomic groups, the highest α-diversity in disturbed forest patches occurred under moderate disturbance severity, i.e. with approximately 55% of trees killed by disturbance. We further extended our meta-analysis by applying a unified diversity concept based on Hill numbers to estimate α-diversity changes in different taxonomic groups across a gradient of disturbance severity measured at the stand scale and incorporating other disturbance features. We found that disturbance severity negatively affected diversity for Hill number q = 0 but not for q = 1 and q = 2, indicating that diversity-disturbance relationships are shaped by species relative abundances. Our synthesis of α-diversity was extended by a synthesis of disturbance-induced change in species assemblages, and revealed that disturbance changes the β-diversity of multiple taxonomic groups, including some groups that were not affected at the α-diversity level (birds and woody plants). Finally, we used mixed rarefaction/extrapolation to estimate biodiversity change as a function of the proportion of forests that were disturbed, i.e. the disturbance extent measured at the landscape scale. The comparison of intact and naturally disturbed forests revealed that both types of forests provide habitat for unique species assemblages, whereas species diversity in the mixture of disturbed and undisturbed forests peaked at intermediate values of disturbance extent in the simulated landscape. Hence, the relationship between α-diversity and disturbance severity in disturbed forest stands was strikingly similar to the relationship between species richness and disturbance extent in a landscape consisting of both disturbed and undisturbed forest habitats. This result suggests that both moderate disturbance severity and moderate disturbance extent support the highest levels of biodiversity in contemporary forest landscapes.
View
View
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.