The Effects of Rehabilitation Treatments on Landscape Function Within a Softwood Plantation After Fire: Implications for Catchment Management

There is global interest in enhancing the ecosystem services provided by landscapes and catchments dominated by plantation (monoculture) forestry. Partial reversion of plantations to locally native species (reforestation) is one option. However, the ecological outcomes of this kind of plantation reversion are poorly known. The partial reforestation of a pine plantation (Pinus radiata D. Don 1836) in the Australian Capital Territory with native species following a wildfire provides a rare case study of the environmental consequences of such a reversion. We estimated changes in landscape functionality by measuring indices of water infiltration, nutrient cycling, and soil surface stability across five landscape-scale treatments after the 2003 Lower Cotter Catchment bushfire: (1) natural regeneration of a native forest burned in 2003, (2) burned pine plantation replanted to pines, (3) burned plantation replanted to native trees and shrubs, (4) burned plantation allowed to naturally regenerate, and (5) forest roads rehabilitated by planting native trees and shrubs. At 14 years after the fire, we found that the regenerating native forest had the highest indices of water infiltration, nutrient cycling, and soil surface stability. The burned pine plantation that was replanted to pines in 2005 had indices of functionality that were higher than the burned plantation areas that were either allowed to naturally regenerate to native eucalypt forest or were planted with native forest species. These two types of native forest rehabilitation treatments had only minor differences in functionality. The rehabilitated closed roads were the least functional. We found that a pine plantation at the closed canopy stage can supply regulating services of water infiltration, nutrient cycling, and soil surface stability comparable to a native forest at a similar stage postfire; however, a significant limitation of the plantation was its low ecosystem resilience. It required massive soil disturbance to replant postfire and long-term maintenance of an extensive unpaved road network. The active or passive rehabilitation of native forest is justified to improve the natural resilience to wildfire. However, this rehabilitation of a native forest following use as a pine plantation is a multidecade process in this relatively low-rainfall environment. Study Implications The 2003 Canberra bushfire destroyed the entire pine plantation at Lower Cotter Catchment, a water catchment in Australian Capital Territory, but also provided an opportunity to examine and quantify changes in ecosystem functions with different restoration treatments. Landscape Function Analysis, including three indices (water infiltration, nutrient cycling, and soil surface stability), was used in this study. Findings suggest that both native eucalyptus forests and pine plantations recovered to relatively high levels of functionality within just 15 years after the bushfire, compared with all other restoration treatments, but plantations of Pinus radiata are not resilient to wildfire from a commercial perspective. These results help to justify the controversial decision to restore the majority of the catchment with native species in 2005. However, long-term monitoring is needed to determine how long it will take for the replanted and natural regeneration treatments to approach the functionality of the native forest.

Termites (Insecta: Isoptera) diversity in forest conseccion areas of PT Inhutani I, Indonesia

Termites as wood biodeterioration agents have an important role in the ecosystem. This study aimed to observe termite diversity. A termites survey was conducted on Forest Concession Areas of PT. Inhutani I, South Sulawesi Indonesia. The termite specimens collected used the standardized transect sampling protocols at three different sites (forest with mixed vegetation, Pinus merkusii plantation, and logged-over area; and measurement of nine morphological characters of the soldier was conducted, i.e: head length without mandibles, head width at base of mandible, maximum width of head, left mandible length, pronotum length, maximum width of pronotum, postmentum length, postmentum width of postmentum, and the number of antenna segments. The results showed that there are four species found based on the morphological characteristics and morphometrical data, namely: Odontotermes javanicus., Nasutitermes sp., Schedorhinotermes sp. and Coptotermes curvignathus. The highest termite abundance was found in forest with mixed vegetation. The termite diversity in logged-over area and forest with mixed areas was moderate, while species diversity in pine plantation was low.

Analysing How Pre-Fire Habitat Legacy and Post-Fire Management Influence the Resilience of Reptiles to Fire

At the landscape scale, the Mediterranean region is a mosaic of habitats occupied by plants and animals with different resilience to fire. One of these habitats, the pine plantation, is characterized by its structural simplification and susceptibility to fire. Despite its high flammability, few studies have compared the response of animal communities between pine plantations and other autochthonous woodlands. For five years after a large fire in southwestern Europe, we surveyed reptiles in two natural habitats (oak forest, scrubland) and a pine plantation managed with salvage logging, a post-fire practice which consists of the complete harvesting and removal of death burnt trees. Reptile abundance and species composition were examined to assess differences in the reptile community between these habitats. Differences between burnt and unburnt transects were limited to the first year after the fire, while, over the entire five-year period, differences in species composition and abundance were due to vegetation type instead of fire. The pine logged area showed a delay in the recovery of vegetation and also in the appearance of many reptile species after the fire. At the reptile species level, we found evidence of both positive responses to fire (for lizards with high heliothermic activity) and negative ones (for specialist snake species). Overall, our results confirm the resilience of the reptile community to fire. The mosaic of habitats in the Mediterranean region and the openness caused by fire can increase the reptile biodiversity (landscape- plus pyro-diversity effects), but some practices such as salvage logging coupled with fire regime shifts (larger and more frequent fires) can compromise the conservation of the biodiversity in fire-prone regions.

Tree Form of Juniper (Juniperus communis L.) in the Forests of the Vologda Region

Common juniper (Juniperus communis L.) is one of the most widespread undergrowth species in the forests of Russia. It has not only important silvicultural significance but is also widely used in economic activities. Numerous works of Russian and foreign authors are devoted to its study. The article shows the results of geobotanical and forest inventory studies of a unique area of pine plantation in the Kirillovskiy district of the Vologda region. In the second understorey of which tree-form common juniper grows. The stand was classified as high-density (relative fullness – 0.85) and low quality (quality class – V–IV). The total stock of trunk wood on the site is 280 m3/ha, including the stock of juniper wood – 28 m3/ha. The average diameter of juniper trunks is 14 cm, the average height is 11 m and the age is 180 yrs. This is several times higher than its usual parameters in other forests. A significant number of specimens of juniper (50 pcs/ha) are in the stage of drying out or have already died and represent dead wood of different years. The number of small and medium-sized juniper undergrowth is 1.5 ths pcs/ha or 62.5 % of the growing. Undergrowth of European spruce, downy birch and black alder is also found. The existing undergrowth is assessed as promising, but Scots pine undergrowth is missing. The ground cover is dominated by green and sphagnum mosses as well as shrubs of the Ericaceae and Vacciniaceae families. The study of such objects, extremely rare not only in the north of the European part of Russia, but also everywhere, is of great practical importance. It is also important for understanding the biology of the only representative of the Cupressaceae family that naturally grows here. The tree-form juniper in the pine plantation has survived and reached a size not typical for this species due to the inaccessibility of the site, the lack of fires and forest felling. Such forest areas should be identified, protected, and subjected to stationary research. For citation: Evdokimov I.V., Dobrynin A.P., Armeeva N.A. Tree Form of Juniper (Juniperus communis L.) in the Forests of the Vologda Region. Lesnoy Zhurnal [Russian Forestry Journal], 2021, no. 5, pp. 201–209. DOI: 10.37482/0536-1036-2021-5-201-209

Land Use and Degradation in a Desert Margin: The Northern Negev

Degradation in a range of land uses was examined across the transition from the arid to the semi-arid zone in the northern Negev desert, representative of developments in land use taking place throughout the West Asia and North Africa region. Primary production was used as an index of an important aspect of dryland degradation. It was derived from data provided by Landsat measurements at 0.1 ha resolution over a 2500 km2 study region—the first assessment of the degradation of a large area of a desert margin at a resolution suitable for interpretation in terms of human activities. The Local NPP Scaling (LNS) method enabled comparisons between the observed NPP and the potential, nondegraded, reference NPP. The potential was calculated by normalizing the actual NPP to remove the effects of environmental conditions that are not related to anthropogenic degradation. Of the entire study area, about 50% was found to have a significantly lower production than its potential. The degree of degradation ranged from small in pasture, around informal settlements, minimally managed dryland cropping, and a pine plantation, to high in commercial cropping and extreme in low-density afforestation. This result was unexpected as degradation in drylands is often attributed to pastoralism, and afforestation is said to offer remediation and prevention of further damage.

Covariation between plant biodiversity and soil systems in a European beech forest and a black pine plantation: the case of Mount Faito, (Campania, Southern Italy)

Both climate and land-use changes, including the introduction and spread of allochthonous species, are forecast to affect forest ecosystems. Accordingly, forests will be affected in terms of species composition as well as their soil chemical and biological characteristics. The possible changes in both tree cover and soil system might impact the amount of carbon that is stored in living plants and dead biomass and within the soil itself. Additionally, such alterations can have a strong impact on the detrital food web that is linked to litter decomposition. Although there are studies on the influence of plant diversity on soil physical and chemical characteristics, the effects on soil biological activity and carbon storage processes remain largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare chemical and biological variables in covariation with plant communities in an autochthonous beech forest (Fagus sylvatica L.) and a black pine plantation (Pinus nigra J.F. Arnold subsp. nigra). Our results confirmed that the two communities were considerably different, with the old-growth beech community having a lower number of plant species and the pine community was in development as a consequence of anthropogenic activities. These aspects of the two communities were also reflected in the soil, with the beech soil having higher nitrogen levels and a more specialized microbial community compared to the pine soil, with most extracellular enzymes (such as peroxidase and chitinase) showing lower activity in the pine soil.