Abstract

Background: In recent decades the frequency and severity of natural disturbances by e.g., strong winds and insect outbreaks has increased considerably in many forest ecosystems around the world. Future climate change is expected to further intensify disturbance regimes, which makes addressing disturbances in ecosystem management a top priority. As a prerequisite a broader understanding of disturbance impacts and ecosystem responses is needed. With regard to the effects of strong winds – the most detrimental disturbance agent in Europe – monitoring and management has focused on structural damage, i.e., tree mortality from uprooting and stem breakage. Effects on the functioning of trees surviving the storm (e.g., their productivity and allocation) have been rarely accounted for to date. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we show that growth reduction was significant and pervasive in a 6.79 million hectare forest landscape in southern Sweden following the storm Gudrun (January 2005). Wind-related growth reduction in Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) forests surviving the storm exceeded 10% in the worst hit regions, and was closely related to maximum gust wind speed (R2 = 0.849) and structural wind damage (R2 = 0.782). At the landscape scale, windrelated growth reduction amounted to 3.0 million m3 in the three years following Gudrun. It thus exceeds secondary damage from bark beetles after Gudrun as well as the long-term average storm damage from uprooting and stem breakage in Sweden. Conclusions/Significance: We conclude that the impact of strong winds on forest ecosystems is not limited to the immediately visible area of structural damage, and call for a broader consideration of disturbance effects on ecosystem structure and functioning in the context of forest management and climate change mitigation

Published in

PLoS ONE
2012, Volume: 7, number: 3
Publisher: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

SLU Authors

• Blennow, Kristina

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
SDG13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Landscape Architecture
Forest Science
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033301

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/56468