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The condition and dynamics of New Forest woodlands

Comparison of small-footprint discrete return and full waveform airborne lidar data for estimating multiple forest variables

Cultural Severance and the Environment

Protected areas are increasingly being recognized as coupled social-ecological systems, whose effectiveness depends on their resilience. Here I present a historical profile of an individual case study, the New Forest (England), which was first designated as a protected area more than 900 years ago. Uniquely, a traditional pattern of land use has been maintained ever since, providing a rare opportunity to examine the resilience of an integrated social-ecological system over nine centuries. The New Forest demonstrates that over the long term, coupled social-ecological systems can be resilient to major internal and external shocks, including climate change, mass human mortality and war. Changes in governance had the greatest impact on the reserve itself, with two major crises identified in the mid-19th and 20th centuries. Resolution of these crises depended on the formation of alliances between local people and external partners, including the general public, a process that was supported by improvements in visitor access. Over a timescale of centuries, this social-ecological system has been highly dynamic in disturbance regimes but relatively stable in land use patterns. However, the factors underpinning resilience have changed over time. This case study suggests that for protected areas to be effective over the long term, social structures and institutions as well as environmental processes require adaptive capacity.

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Social-ecological Resilience and Biodiversity Conservation in a 900-year- old Protected Area

Ecological thresholds, which represent points of rapid change in ecological properties, are of major scientific and societal concern. However, very little research has focused on empirically testing the occurrence of thresholds in temperate terrestrial ecosystems. To address this knowledge gap, we tested whether a number of biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem condition metrics exhibited thresholds in response to a gradient of forest dieback, measured as changes in basal area of living trees relative to areas that lacked recent dieback. The gradient of dieback was sampled using 12 replicate study areas in a temperate forest ecosystem. Our results provide novel evidence of several thresholds in biodiversity (namely species richness of ectomycorrhizal fungi, epiphytic lichen and ground flora); for ecological condition (e.g. sward height, palatable seedling abundance) and a single threshold for ecosystem function (i.e. soil respiration rate). Mechanisms for these thresholds are explored. As climate-induced forest dieback is increasing worldwide, both in scale and speed, these results imply that threshold responses may become increasingly widespread.

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Thresholds of biodiversity and ecosystem function in a forest ecosystem undergoing dieback.

regeneration by tree species was found to be widespread but to occur at low density, despite heavy browsing pressure. The model was found to accurately predict the abundance and richness of tree species. Over the duration of the simulations (300 yr), woodland area increased in all scenarios, with or without herbivory. While the increase in woodland area was most pronounced under a scenario of no herbivory, values increased by more than 70% even in the presence of heavy browsing pressure. Model projections provided little evidence for the conversion of woodland areas to either grassland or heathland; changes in woodland structure and composition were consistent with traditional successional theory. These results highlight the need for multiple types of intervention when managing successional landscape mosaics and demonstrate the value of landscape-scale modelling for evaluating the role of herbivory in conservation management.

/pdf/dynamics-and-conservation-management-of-a-wooded-landscape-3gkw8nccuu.pdf

The condition and dynamics of New Forest woodlands

Citations

Comparison of small-footprint discrete return and full waveform airborne lidar data for estimating multiple forest variables

Cultural Severance and the Environment

Social-ecological Resilience and Biodiversity Conservation in a 900-year- old Protected Area

Thresholds of biodiversity and ecosystem function in a forest ecosystem undergoing dieback.

Dynamics and Conservation Management of a Wooded Landscape under High Herbivore Pressure

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