Where are Europe’s last primary forests?

Diversity and Distributions - Tập 24 Số 10 - Trang 1426-1439 - 2018
Francesco Sabatini1, Sabina Burrascano2, William S. Keeton3, Christian Levers1, Marcus Lindner4, Florian Pötzschner1, Pieter Johannes Verkerk5, Jürgen Bauhus6, Erik Buchwald7, Oleh Chaskovsky8, Nicolas Debaive9, Ferenc Horváth10, Matteo Garbarino11, Nikolaos Grigoriadis12, Fabio Lombardi13, Inês Duarte14, Peter Meyer15, Rein Midteng16, Stjepan Mikac17, Martin Mikoláš18, Renzo Motta11, Gintautas Mozgeris19, Leónia Nunes20,14, Momchil Panayotov21, Péter Ódor10, Alejandro Ruete22, Бојан Симовски23, Jonas Stillhard24, Miroslav Svoboda18, Jerzy Szwagrzyk25, Olli‐Pekka Tikkanen26, Roman Volosyanchuk27, Tomáš Vrška28, Tzvetan Zlatanov29, Tobias Kuemmerle1
1Geography Department, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2Department of Environmental Biology, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
3Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources , University of Vermont , Burlington, Vermont, USA
4European Forest Institute, Bonn, Germany
5European Forest Institute, Joensuu, Finland
6Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
7The Danish Nature Agency Randbøl Denmark
8Institute of Forest Management, National University of Forestry and Wood Technology, Lviv, Ukraine
9Réserves Naturelles de France, Dijon Cedex, France
10Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Vácrátót, Hungary
11Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (DISAFA), University of Torino, Grugliasco, Italy
12Forest Research Institute of Thessaloniki, Vassilika, Greece
13Department of AGRARIA, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy
14Centre for Applied Ecology “Professor Baeta Neves” (CEABN), InBIO, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
15Northwest German Forest Research Institute, Göttingen, Germany
16Asplan Viak, Sandvika, Norway
17Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Ecology and Silviculture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
18Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Praha-Suchdol, Czech Republic
19Institute of Forest Management and Wood Science, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Akademija, Lithuania
20CITAB Centre of the Research and Technology of Agro‐Environmental and Biological Science University of Trás‐os‐Montes and Alto Douro Vila Real Portugal
21Dendrology Department, University of Forestry, Sofia, Bulgaria
22Greensway AB, Uppsala, Sweden
23Faculty of Forestry in Skopje, Department of Botany and Dendrology, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
24WSL Swiss Federal Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
25Faculty of Forestry Institute of Forest Ecology and Silviculture University of Agriculture Kraków Poland
26School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
27WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine
28Forest Ecology Department, Silva Tarouca Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic
29Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

Tóm tắt

AbstractAimPrimary forests have high conservation value but are rare in Europe due to historic land use. Yet many primary forest patches remain unmapped, and it is unclear to what extent they are effectively protected. Our aim was to (1) compile the most comprehensive European‐scale map of currently known primary forests, (2) analyse the spatial determinants characterizing their location and (3) locate areas where so far unmapped primary forests likely occur.LocationEurope.MethodsWe aggregated data from a literature review, online questionnaires and 32 datasets of primary forests. We used boosted regression trees to explore which biophysical, socio‐economic and forest‐related variables explain the current distribution of primary forests. Finally, we predicted and mapped the relative likelihood of primary forest occurrence at a 1‐km resolution across Europe.ResultsData on primary forests were frequently incomplete or inconsistent among countries. Known primary forests covered 1.4 Mha in 32 countries (0.7% of Europe’s forest area). Most of these forests were protected (89%), but only 46% of them strictly. Primary forests mostly occurred in mountain and boreal areas and were unevenly distributed across countries, biogeographical regions and forest types. Unmapped primary forests likely occur in the least accessible and populated areas, where forests cover a greater share of land, but wood demand historically has been low.Main conclusionsDespite their outstanding conservation value, primary forests are rare and their current distribution is the result of centuries of land use and forest management. The conservation outlook for primary forests is uncertain as many are not strictly protected and most are small and fragmented, making them prone to extinction debt and human disturbance. Predicting where unmapped primary forests likely occur could guide conservation efforts, especially in Eastern Europe where large areas of primary forest still exist but are being lost at an alarming pace.

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Diversity and Distributions

Tập 24 Số 10

1426-1439

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