New articles: Modelling species richness of trees and birds in forest systems
For preserving biodiversity of European-Mediterranean forest ecosystems in current and future scenarios of global change by means of sustainable forest management it is necessary to determine how environment and forest characteristics correlate with biodiversity.
Two new articles published in the Journal Forest Systems and Journal of Vegetation Science, in which Assu Gil-Tena and Lluís Brotons took part, have addressed this issue in birds and trees.
The bird models developed had a good generalization capacity and showed that forests with different degrees of canopy closure that were more mature and presented a more diverse tree species composition were also associated with higher bird species richness. This allowed us to provide management guidelines for forest planning in order to promote avian diversity in this European-Mediterranean region.
On the other hand, landscape models of tree and shrub diversity in Central Spain were more informative when they accounted for effects of management practices, at least at intermediate scales. In the context of current rural abandonment, silvicultural disturbances of intermediate intensity increased gamma species richness of woody plants. Exclusion of factors such as agrosilvopastoral systems from
models could have led to spurious relationships with other spatially co-varying factors (e.g. summer precipitation).
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Per preservar la biodiversitat en boscos Mediterranis en escenaris presents i futurs de canvi global és necesari determinar com l’ambient i les característiques dels boscs es relacionen amb els patrons de biodiversitat.
Dos nous artícles publicats a les revistes Forest Systems i Journal of Vegetation Science, en els que han participat Assu Gil-Tena i Lluís Brotons, han tractat aquest tema utilitzant els ocells i els arbres i arbustus com a models d’estudi.
