Core Project 6 - Forest structure

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Ammer
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Forestry
• Term: since 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 193928818

The long cultural history of Central Europe often makes it difficult to determine the effects of land use on biodiversity. This is especially true for forests, whose structures result from abiotic site conditions, biotic interactions, natural disturbances, and forest management. Since forest structure is linked to biodiversity, separating the factors influencing forest structures and their dynamics as well as studying their relationship to biodiversity is a major goal of the Biodiversity Exploratories. Core Project 6 'Forest Structure' will provide data on forest inventory conducted at regular intervals and results of terrestrial laser scanning. This includes data on forest productivity, natural tree mortality, harvests, spatial stand structure, and stand composition for all forested Experimental plots (EPs) and the changes of these variables over time. Moreover, Core Project ‘Forest Structure’ provides baseline data for all newly established plots of the joint multi-site experiment FOX (Forest gap experiment) and information on above- and belowground gap dynamics. In the new phase, we continue to record attributes of forest structure and their changes due to forest management and natural processes. Particular emphasis will be placed on repeated surveys of deadwood quantity and composition, and on the abundance of tree microhabitats. The processed data will serve as explanatory variables for all forest related projects of the Biodiversity Exploratories.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories