Quality and temporal developments of habitat trees and their microhabitats in temperate European forests. Dissertation

Freiburg im Breisgau

2023

125 S.

Monographie

18402BU

40004639

The retention of habitat trees has been recently introduced as a biodiversity conservation practice in the multiple-use forests of temperate Europe. Habitat trees are commonly selected based on their microhabitats, such as woodpecker cavities or crown deadwood. Tree-related microhabitats or shortly TreMs, are structural features needed by many forest-dwelling species during different life stages. The occurrence ot TreMs depends on various tree attributes, including size, vitality and species identy. Thus, TreM assemblages and associated forest-dwelling species will bei affected by changes in tree communities such as those driven by increasing rates of climate change-related distribances and tree mortality. However, current retention forestry approches have been rather static, and do not consider the temporal dynamics of habitat trees and their TreMs.