Afforestation using a range of tree species, in New Zealand: New Forest trial series establishment, site description, and initial data
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Paul T
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10980996 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Interest in establishing biological-based economies has created increasing and rapidly moving demand for wood and fibre from production forests. Meeting the global demand for timber supply will require investment and development across all components of the supply chain but will ultimately rely on the ability of the forestry sector to increase productivity without compromising the sustainability of plantation management. To address this issue in the context of New Zealand forestry, a trial series was established from 2015 to 2018 to accelerate plantation forest growth by exploring current and future limitations to timber productivity, then altering management practices to overcome these limits. The six sites in this Accelerator trial series were planted with a mix of 12 different types of Pinus radiata D. Don stock expressing various traits related to tree growth, health and wood quality. The planting stock included ten clones, a hybrid and a seed lot representing a widely planted tree stock used throughout New Zealand. At each trial site a range of treatments were applied, including a control. The treatments were designed to address the specific current and predicted limitations to productivity at each location, with consideration for environmental sustainability and impacts on wood quality. Additional site-specific treatments will be implemented across the approximately 30-year life span of each trial. Here we present data describing both the pre-harvest and time zero state of at each trial site. These data provide a baseline that will enable treatment responses to be holistically understood as the trial series matures. This comparison will determine if current tree productivity has been enhanced, and if improvements in site characteristics may also benefit future rotations. The Accelerator trials represent an ambitious research goal that will take planted forest productivity to a new level of enhanced long-term forest productivity without compromising the sustainable management of future forests.
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Project description:Methanotrophs use methane (CH(4)) as a carbon source. They are particularly active in temperate forest soils. However, the rate of change of CH(4) oxidation in soil with afforestation or reforestation is poorly understood. Here, soil CH(4) oxidation was examined in New Zealand volcanic soils under regenerating native forests following burning, and in a mature native forest. Results were compared with data for pasture to pine land-use change at nearby sites. We show that following soil disturbance, as little as 47 years may be needed for development of a stable methanotrophic community similar to that in the undisturbed native forest soil. Corresponding soil CH(4)-oxidation rates in the regenerating forest soil have the potential to reach those of the mature forest, but climo-edaphic fators appear limiting. The observed changes in CH(4)-oxidation rate were directly linked to a prior shift in methanotrophic communities, which suggests microbial control of the terrestrial CH(4) flux and identifies the need to account for this response to afforestation and reforestation in global prediction of CH(4) emission.
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Project description:Many natural systems are subject to profound and persistent anthropogenic influence. Human-induced gene movement through afforestation and the selective transportation of genotypes might enhance the potential for intraspecific hybridization, which could lead to outbreeding depression. However, the evolutionary legacy of afforestation on the spatial genetic structure of forest tree species has barely been investigated. To do this properly, the effects of anthropogenic and natural processes must be examined simultaneously. A multidisciplinary approach, integrating phylogeography, population genetics, species distribution modeling, and niche divergence would permit evaluation of potential anthropogenic impacts, such as mass planting near-native material. Here, these approaches were applied to Pinus armandii, a Chinese endemic coniferous tree species, that has been mass planted across its native range. Population genetic analyses showed that natural populations of P. armandii comprised three lineages that diverged around the late Miocene, during a period of massive uplifts of the Hengduan Mountains, and intensification of Asian Summer Monsoon. Only limited gene flow was detected between lineages, indicating that each largely maintained is genetic integrity. Moreover, most or all planted populations were found to have been sourced within the same region, minimizing disruption of large-scale spatial genetic structure within P. armandii. This might be because each of the three lineages had a distinct climatic niche, according to ecological niche modeling and niche divergence tests. The current study provides empirical genetic and ecological evidence for the site-species matching principle in forestry and will be useful to manage restoration efforts by identifying suitable areas and climates for introducing and planting new forests. Our results also highlight the urgent need to evaluate the genetic impacts of large-scale afforestation in other native tree species.
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Project description:Microsatellite markers were developed from a New Zealand endemic understory tree, Fuchsia excorticata, to investigate factors affecting the mating system. • Using 454 pyrosequencing, 48 microsatellite markers were developed and tested for polymorphism within populations. Twelve of these microsatellite loci were identified as being polymorphic within at least three populations and consistently amplified in the four populations tested. These primers amplified di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats with 1-10 alleles per population. • These results indicate the utility of microsatellite loci for future mating system and population genetic studies in F. excorticata.
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Project description:Over the past 1000 years New Zealand has lost 40-50% of its bird species, and over half of these extinctions are attributable to predation by introduced mammals. Populations of many extant forest bird species continue to be depredated by mammals, especially rats, possums, and mustelids. The management history of New Zealand's forests over the past 50 years presents a unique opportunity because a varied program of mammalian predator control has created a replicated management experiment. We conducted a meta-analysis of population-level responses of forest birds to different levels of mammal control recorded across New Zealand. We collected data from 32 uniquely treated sites and 20 extant bird species representing a total of 247 population responses to 3 intensities of invasive mammal control (zero, low, and high). The treatments varied from eradication of invasive mammals via ground-based techniques to periodic suppression of mammals via aerially sown toxin. We modeled population-level responses of birds according to key life history attributes to determine the biological processes that influence species' responses to management. Large endemic species, such as the Kaka (Nestor meridionalis) and New Zealand Pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), responded positively at the population level to mammal control in 61 of 77 cases for species ≥20 g compared with 31 positive responses from 78 cases for species <20 g. The Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa) and Grey Warbler (Gerygone igata), both shallow endemic species, and 4 nonendemic species (Blackbird [Turdus merula], Chaffinch [Fringilla coelebs], Dunnock [Prunella modularis], and Silvereye [Zosterops lateralis]) that arrived in New Zealand in the last 200 years tended to have slight negative or neutral responses to mammal control (59 of 77 cases). Our results suggest that large, deeply endemic forest birds, especially cavity nesters, are most at risk of further decline in the absence of mammal control and, conversely suggest that 6 species apparently tolerate the presence of invasive mammals and may be sensitive to competition from larger endemic birds.
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