Using historical ecology to reassess the conservation status of coniferous forests in Central Europe

0477595 - BÚ 2018 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Szabó, Péter - Kuneš, Petr - Svobodová-Svitavská, Helena - Švarcová, Markéta Gabriela - Křížová, Lucie - Suchánková, Silvie - Müllerová, Jana - Hédl, Radim
Using historical ecology to reassess the conservation status of coniferous forests in Central Europe.
Conservation Biology. Roč. 31, č. 1 (2017), s. 150-160. ISSN 0888-8892. E-ISSN 1523-1739
EU Projects: European Commission(XE) 278065 - LONGWOOD
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : applied historical ecology * interdisciplinarity * vegetation models
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 5.890, year: 2017

We created a vegetation and land-cover model based on pollen data for a highland area of 11,300 km2 in the Czech Republic and assessed tree species composition in the forests before the onset of modern forestry based on 18th-century archival sources. Accordint to the results, conifers dominated the study region throughout the entire Holocene (approximately 40–60% of the area). Broadleaved trees were present in a much smaller area than envisaged by current ideas of natural vegetation. Rather than casting doubt on the principles of Central European nature conservation in general, our results highlight the necessity of detailed regional investigations and the importance of historical data in challenging established notions on the natural distribution of tree species.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0277191