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Ecological mechanisms underpinning species diversity changes along land-use intensity in temperate forests - from trees to landscapes (TreeScape)
Project
Project code: 323939992
Contract period: 01.01.2017
- 31.12.2020
Purpose of research: Inventory & Assessment
Keywords: biodiversity, forest, Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions Forestry
TreeScape investigates the effects of forest structure driven by land-use intensity on biodiversity in temperate forests to identify the main drivers of biodiversity in forests and the main mechanism behind species loss along land-use gradients in order to set a general framework for 3D structures and biodiversity. TreeScape aims to explore the relative influence of LiDAR (Light-Detection and Ranging) derived terrain topography, vegetation structure, floristic composition and landscape context metrics, on a range of eight taxonomical groups in the forest land-use gradients of the Biodiversity-Exploratories and, in addition, in the Bavarian Forest National Park and Steigerwald. To move beyond the level of species and provide comprehensive measures of biodiversity, we aim to compile phylogenies and traits for the eight taxonomic groups (fungi, birds, bats, beetles, true bugs, spiders, vascular plants and lichens) by expanding already published phylogenetic trees and trait lists and by creating new ones for some taxa. Current understanding of how forest heterogeneity influences the diversity of taxa remains limited. Only incremental advances have been made since the 1960s when MacArthur and MacArthur laid the foundation for the habitat-heterogeneity-hypothesis, by showing how increased forest foliage height diversity increases the species diversity of birds by increasing the range of available niches. We do not know how a broader range of taxa responds to variations in forest structural and compositional attributes. Given that land-use change and forest management activities alter the structure and composition of forests, it is critical that we build deeper understanding of heterogeneity-diversity linkages to better inform biodiversity conservation. Advances in remote sensing of forest three-dimensional (3D) heterogeneity and developments in the construction of trait databases and phylogenies for different taxa now enable these linkages to be made - under the appropriate experimental setting. The Biodiversity-Exploratories provides an ideal research platform to address these challenges and it is now possible to set up a globally outstanding framework to test the role of forest structure driven by land-use intensity on biodiversity in temperate forests. Our consortium aims to expose the main drivers of biodiversity in forests, identify the mechanisms underpinning species changes along land-use gradients, and establish a general framework for 3D heterogeneity and biodiversity relationships. Our objectives are to: i) compile existing data in the Biodiversity-Exploratories for eight different taxa; ii) expand and develop trait and phylogenetic dissimilarities for these taxa; iii) calculate a range of forest structure variables along different axes of forest heterogeneity from airborne LiDAR; iv) scale important heterogeneity metrics to the regional landscape in which the Biodiversity-Exploratories are embedded with space-borne RADAR; v) elucidate the influence of local plot and regional landscape structure on species diversity; and vi) expand this research to two other forest types representing unique long gradients of land-use intensity in montane to high montane forests and in colline beech forests in Central Europe.
Section overview
Subjects
- Silviculture
- Genetic Resources
- Climate Change
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology (Zoology III)
