EAN: 9781402034459

TREE SPECIES EFFECTS ON SOILS IMPLICATIONS FOR ...

Almost 50% of the total area of Austria is forested  and the forests are dominated by
commercially valuable stands of Norway spruce ( (Picea abies). The few remaining forests that
resemble the natural vegetation composition are located in forest reserves with restricted
management. These natural forests are used as reference systems for evaluating silvicultural
research on sustainable forest management. Natural forests are expected to have high
biodiversity  where the structural richness of the habitat enables complex relationships
between fauna  flora  and microflora. They also provide refugia for rare plants and animals
found only in natural forest types. Austria had 180 of these forest reserves up to the year
2003. Most of these forests are privately owned  and owners are compensated by the government
for loss of income associated with conservation status. The Ministerial Conference for the
Protection of Forest Ecosystems (MCPFE) has launched a world-wide network of protected forest
areas which should cover all major forest types (MCPFE and UNECE FAO  2003). The sites selected
for our investigation of soil conditions and communities were chosen by vegetation ecologists
and soil scientists. The stands have developed under natural competition conditions with no
management interventions. All sites were well documented with known forest history. Our set of
sites spans gradients of environmental conditions as well as species composition  providing a
realistic evaluation of the interactions of biotic and abiotic factors.

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