The effects of changing land use and browsing on aspen abundance and regeneration: a 50-year perspective from Sweden

Abstract

5. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that changes in land use practices are the main cause of changes in aspen abundance at regional and national scales in Sweden during the last 50 years. Restoring regeneration niches, most importantly emulating natural disturbance processes, viz. fire at various spatial scales, and retaining aspen in cleaning and pre-commercial thinnings are the most important management recommendations to secure regeneration of aspen. Protecting established aspen ramets at designated sites from browsing either by fencing or reducing ungulate numbers could be used as complementary management tools.

Keywords

abundance; aspen; browsing; conservation; demographics; disturbance; forestry; spatial scale; species; ungulates

Published in

Journal of Applied Ecology
2011, volume: 48, number: 2, pages: 301-309
Publisher: WILEY-BLACKWELL

SLU Authors

• Edenius, Lars

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ericsson, Göran

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Kempe, Göran

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Bergström, Roger

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Forestry Research Institute of Sweden, Skogforsk

• Danell, Kjell

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01923.x

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/58023