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Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment
A stable below‐canopy microclimate of forests is essential for their biodiversity and ecosystem functionality. Forest management necessarily modifies the buffering capacity of woodlands. However, the specific effects of different forestry treatments on site conditions, the temporal recovery after th...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900960/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31758609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2043 |
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author | Kovács, Bence Tinya, Flóra Németh, Csaba Ódor, Péter |
author_facet | Kovács, Bence Tinya, Flóra Németh, Csaba Ódor, Péter |
author_sort | Kovács, Bence |
collection | PubMed |
description | A stable below‐canopy microclimate of forests is essential for their biodiversity and ecosystem functionality. Forest management necessarily modifies the buffering capacity of woodlands. However, the specific effects of different forestry treatments on site conditions, the temporal recovery after the harvests, and the reason for the contrasts between treatments are still poorly understood. The effects of four different forestry treatments (clear‐cutting, retention tree group, preparation cutting, and gap‐cutting) on microclimatic variables were studied within a field experiment in a managed oak‐dominated stand in Hungary, before (2014) and after (2015–2017) the interventions by complete block design with six replicates. From the first post‐treatment year, clear‐cuts differed the most from the uncut control due to the increased irradiance and heat load. Means and variability of air and soil temperature increased, air became dryer along with higher soil moisture levels. Retention tree groups could effectively ameliorate the extreme temperatures but not the mean values. Preparation cutting induced slight changes from the original buffered and humid forest microclimate. Despite the substantially more incoming light, gap‐cutting could retain the cool and humid air conditions and showed the highest increase in soil moisture after the interventions. For most microclimate variables, we could not observe any obvious trend within 3 yr. However, soil temperature variability decreased with time in clear‐cuts, while soil moisture difference continuously increased in gap‐ and clear‐cuts. Based on multivariate analyses, the treatments separated significantly based mainly on the temperature maxima and variability. We found that (1) the effect sizes among treatment levels were consistent throughout the years, (2) the climatic recovery time for variables appears to be far more than 3 yr, and (3) the applied silvicultural methods diverged mainly among the temperature maxima. Based on our study, the spatially heterogeneous and fine‐scaled treatments of continuous cover forestry (gap‐cutting, selection systems) are recommended. By applying these practices, the essential structural elements creating buffered microclimate could be more successfully maintained. Thus, forestry interventions could induce less pronounced alterations in environmental conditions for forest‐dwelling organism groups. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7900960 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79009602021-03-03 Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment Kovács, Bence Tinya, Flóra Németh, Csaba Ódor, Péter Ecol Appl Articles A stable below‐canopy microclimate of forests is essential for their biodiversity and ecosystem functionality. Forest management necessarily modifies the buffering capacity of woodlands. However, the specific effects of different forestry treatments on site conditions, the temporal recovery after the harvests, and the reason for the contrasts between treatments are still poorly understood. The effects of four different forestry treatments (clear‐cutting, retention tree group, preparation cutting, and gap‐cutting) on microclimatic variables were studied within a field experiment in a managed oak‐dominated stand in Hungary, before (2014) and after (2015–2017) the interventions by complete block design with six replicates. From the first post‐treatment year, clear‐cuts differed the most from the uncut control due to the increased irradiance and heat load. Means and variability of air and soil temperature increased, air became dryer along with higher soil moisture levels. Retention tree groups could effectively ameliorate the extreme temperatures but not the mean values. Preparation cutting induced slight changes from the original buffered and humid forest microclimate. Despite the substantially more incoming light, gap‐cutting could retain the cool and humid air conditions and showed the highest increase in soil moisture after the interventions. For most microclimate variables, we could not observe any obvious trend within 3 yr. However, soil temperature variability decreased with time in clear‐cuts, while soil moisture difference continuously increased in gap‐ and clear‐cuts. Based on multivariate analyses, the treatments separated significantly based mainly on the temperature maxima and variability. We found that (1) the effect sizes among treatment levels were consistent throughout the years, (2) the climatic recovery time for variables appears to be far more than 3 yr, and (3) the applied silvicultural methods diverged mainly among the temperature maxima. Based on our study, the spatially heterogeneous and fine‐scaled treatments of continuous cover forestry (gap‐cutting, selection systems) are recommended. By applying these practices, the essential structural elements creating buffered microclimate could be more successfully maintained. Thus, forestry interventions could induce less pronounced alterations in environmental conditions for forest‐dwelling organism groups. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-01-13 2020-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7900960/ /pubmed/31758609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2043 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Ecological Society of America This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
spellingShingle | Articles Kovács, Bence Tinya, Flóra Németh, Csaba Ódor, Péter Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title | Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title_full | Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title_fullStr | Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title_full_unstemmed | Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title_short | Unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
title_sort | unfolding the effects of different forestry treatments on microclimate in oak forests: results of a 4‐yr experiment |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900960/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31758609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2043 |
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