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The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities

BACKGROUND: Riparian forests surrounding streams host high biodiversity values, but are threatened by clear-cut logging. Narrow buffer strips of about 15 m are commonly left between the stream and the clear-cut, but studies suggest that the buffer width should be at least 30 m to protect riparian pl...

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Autores principales: Oldén, A., Selonen, V. A. O., Lehkonen, E., Kotiaho, J. S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6368960/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30738432
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0225-0
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author Oldén, A.
Selonen, V. A. O.
Lehkonen, E.
Kotiaho, J. S.
author_facet Oldén, A.
Selonen, V. A. O.
Lehkonen, E.
Kotiaho, J. S.
author_sort Oldén, A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Riparian forests surrounding streams host high biodiversity values, but are threatened by clear-cut logging. Narrow buffer strips of about 15 m are commonly left between the stream and the clear-cut, but studies suggest that the buffer width should be at least 30 m to protect riparian plant communities. Moreover, selective logging is often allowed on the buffer strips in order to increase economic gain. We used an experiment of 43 riparian sites where buffer strip width and selective logging within the strip were manipulated and supplemented with unlogged control sites. We report the short-term changes in the community composition of vascular plants and mosses near the stream (0–15 m distance). RESULTS: 15-meter buffers are not enough to protect the vascular plant communities from changes caused by a clear-cut irrespective of the selective logging on the buffer strip. For moss communities 15-m buffers were not enough if they were selectively logged. Relative to the control sites, we observed no significant changes in community composition of vascular plants or mosses in the sites with 30-m buffer strips, whether selectively logged or not. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that buffer strips of 15 m are not sufficient to protect streamside plant communities even in the short term, but that buffers of 30 m should be left on both sides of the stream. Selective logging appears not to have effects on buffers that are at least 30 m wide. Thus, it may be more reasonable to increase buffer width and to allow selective logging on the wider buffer in order to compensate for the economic losses than to leave all trees on a narrow and ecologically insufficient buffer. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12898-019-0225-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-63689602019-02-20 The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities Oldén, A. Selonen, V. A. O. Lehkonen, E. Kotiaho, J. S. BMC Ecol Research Article BACKGROUND: Riparian forests surrounding streams host high biodiversity values, but are threatened by clear-cut logging. Narrow buffer strips of about 15 m are commonly left between the stream and the clear-cut, but studies suggest that the buffer width should be at least 30 m to protect riparian plant communities. Moreover, selective logging is often allowed on the buffer strips in order to increase economic gain. We used an experiment of 43 riparian sites where buffer strip width and selective logging within the strip were manipulated and supplemented with unlogged control sites. We report the short-term changes in the community composition of vascular plants and mosses near the stream (0–15 m distance). RESULTS: 15-meter buffers are not enough to protect the vascular plant communities from changes caused by a clear-cut irrespective of the selective logging on the buffer strip. For moss communities 15-m buffers were not enough if they were selectively logged. Relative to the control sites, we observed no significant changes in community composition of vascular plants or mosses in the sites with 30-m buffer strips, whether selectively logged or not. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that buffer strips of 15 m are not sufficient to protect streamside plant communities even in the short term, but that buffers of 30 m should be left on both sides of the stream. Selective logging appears not to have effects on buffers that are at least 30 m wide. Thus, it may be more reasonable to increase buffer width and to allow selective logging on the wider buffer in order to compensate for the economic losses than to leave all trees on a narrow and ecologically insufficient buffer. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12898-019-0225-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6368960/ /pubmed/30738432 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0225-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Oldén, A.
Selonen, V. A. O.
Lehkonen, E.
Kotiaho, J. S.
The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title_full The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title_fullStr The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title_full_unstemmed The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title_short The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
title_sort effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6368960/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30738432
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0225-0
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