Experimental restoration of coppice-with-standards: Response of understorey vegetation from the conservation perspective.

ABSTRACT: A substantial part of European lowland woodlands was managed as coppices or wood pastures for millennia. However, traditional management forms were almost completely abandoned in Central Europe by the middle of the 20th century. Combined with the effects of nitrogen deposition and herbivore pressure, shifts in management resulted in biodiversity loss affecting particularly light-demanding oligotrophic plant species. Experimental thinning was applied in a former oak coppice-with-standards in an attempt to restore vanishing understorey plant communities. Two levels of thinning intensity and zero management as control were used on 90 plots. Ten years after the treatment, significant changes in species composition and diversity were observed in heavily thinned plots, while moderate thinning ha

SUBMITTER: Vild O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5777631 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature