Manipulation of vegetation succession in forestry and applications for sustainable forest management

Abstract

This thesis contributes to an improved understanding of how vegetation succession of forestry plantations can be manipulated so that the subsequent successional trajectories contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity as part of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). Many European countries have shown a net increase in forest area over the past several decades with almost half of this increase due to plantations and the rest from natural expansion of forests into fonner agricultural land and the restoration or creation of semi-natural planted forests using native species. As well as being managed for timber production plantations are increasingly under SFM that supports the provision of other environmental, economic, and social benefits from plantations. Research has shown that, with appropriate planning and management, forestry plantations have the potential to add to the landscape quality and local biodiversity of an area.