2026-04-14T05:14:52Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:10459.1/730352024-12-05T22:42:05Zcom_2072_3622col_2072_479130

Stand structure and local landscape variables are the dominant factors explaining shrub and tree diversity in Mediterranean forests Ghadban, Siba Améztegui González, Aitor Rodrigues Mimbrero, Marcos Chocarro, Cristina Alcasena Urdíroz, Fermín J. Vega García, Cristina Landscape metrics Forest management Artificial neural networks Richness Shannon diversity index Paisatge Boscos--Gestió Boscos i silvicultura Plant diversity is a core value of forests and is rapidly becoming a primary management goal under the threat of global environmental changes. Changing conditions, including forestry interventions, or lack of them, may endanger its preservation. Abandonment of management in forests previously subjected to a multipurpose silviculture and secondary succession is hypothesized to have altered the biodiverse Mediterranean forests in recent years and affected plant diversity. We used data in national forest inventory plots and local landscape ecology metrics from forest cartography, combined with artificial neural networks, to predict richness and Shannon diversity indices for the tree and shrub layers of several Mediterranean forest types. We found that richness and diversity depend on forest structure and on local landscape patterns, and also, though to a lesser degree, on site conditions (mainly soil pH), but not on forest intervention. In order to benefit plant diversity in the forest landscapes analyzed, forest management practices need to promote diameter variety, the presence of large trees, tree cover, variation in the height of trees and shrubs, and a heterogeneous local landscape at the stand level. Aleppo pine forests and Scots pine forests showed more consistent results in their models than cork oak and black pine forests, both of which require further research. Financial support was provided as a scholarship to Siba Ghadban by the Erasmus Mundus Programme MEDfOR funded by the European Commission (https://www.medfor.eu/, accessed on 18 October 2021). This work was conducted under the project CLIMARK (LIFE16 CCM/ES/000065)-Forest management promotion for climate change mitigation through the design of a local market of climatic credits, funded by the European Commission. 2022-02-18T11:49:34Z 2022-02-18T11:49:34Z 2021 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111658 2071-1050 http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/73035 http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/73035 eng Reproducció del document publicat a https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111658 Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, núm. 21, p. 1-19 cc-by (c) Ghadban et al., 2021 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ MDPI