Abstract

Restoration of degraded habitat is frequently used in ecological compensation. However, ecological restoration suffers from innate problems of long delivery times of features shown to be good proxies for biodiversity, e.g., large dead trees. We tested a possible way to circumvent this problem; the translocation of hard-to-come deadwood substrates from an impact area to a compensation area. Following translocation, deadwood density in the compensation area was locally equivalent to the impact area, around 20 m3 ha-1, a threshold for supporting high biodiversity of rare and red-listed species. However, deadwood composition differed between the impact and compensation area, showing a need to include more deadwood types, e.g., late decomposition deadwood, in the translocation scheme. To guide future compensation efforts, the cost for translocation at different spatial scales was calculated. We conclude that translocation of deadwood could provide a cost-efficient new tool for ecological compensation/restoration but that the method needs refinement.

Keywords

Biodiversity offset; Boreal forest; Conservation; Cost-efficiency; Deadwood; Restoration

Published in

AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment
2024, Volume: 53, number: 3, pages: 482-496
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Tranberg, Olov

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

• Hekkala, Anne-Maarit

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

• Lindroos, Ola

  • Department of Forest Biomaterials and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Löfroth, Therese

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

• Jönsson, Mari

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sjögren, Jörgen

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

• Hjältén, Joakim

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

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01934-0

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/126820