Vegetationsökologisches Monitoring in unterschiedlichen Lebensräumen : Vegetationskundliches Monitoring in Waldökosystemen

1997

zahlr. Lit. Ang.

Unselbständiges Werk

11920

200105141

Monitoring in forests allows representative statements on the environmental conditions and their alterations, as forests are well balanced and natural ecosystems. Therefore, many monitoring programms in forests deal with the observation of the environment and forest damages. The Austrian Forest Inventory (Österreichische Waldinventur), a programme with over 10.000 permanent plots, perfomed by the Federal Forest Research Centre Vienna (Forstliche Bundesversuchsanstalt) since 1961, deals with research on forest management. Besides, there are experiments on soil fertilization and investigations of forest regeneration. Another point of interest are vegetation dynamics, which are mainy investigated in forests no longer managed. The "Naturraum-Stichprobeninventur" in the national park Limestone Alps (Nationalpark Kalkalpen) and the Man and the Biosphere-Project "The hemeroby of Austrian Forest Ecosystems" (Hemerobie Österreichischer Waldökosysteme) deal with aspects of nature conservation. Among the parameters investigated, the emphasis was placed on the woody plants, which determine the structure, growth rate and regeneration of the forest and show the extent of forest damage. The ground vegetation reflects, for instance, the amount of pollutants and direct human impact. Epiphytic mosses and lichens are good indicators for air pollutants. Furthermore structural parameters (e.g structure of the forest, dead wood) and parameters concerning the site (e.g. soil) are recorded. Sampling is carried out either by means of regular grid,a method for stratification or according to subjective criteria. The design of the permanent plots depends on the investigation method. In determining the frequency of recordings it should be considered that changes in the canopy take much more time than changes in the ground vegetation. In a pilot study in the the national park Limestone Alps (Nationalpark Kalkalpen) the amount of scientific and financial expense needed for ecological monitoring in forests has been analysed.