Core Project 6 - Forest structure

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Ammer
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Forestry
• Term: since 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 193928818

The core project “Forest Structure” focuses alternately on the assessment of the structure and dynamics of the forest stands of the Biodiversity Exploratories (EPs) and on the assessment of deadwood and microhabitats. In the new phase (2026-2029), a new inventory of all trees is planned, which will establish themselves, grow, die or be harvested on the EPs. The quantitative description of forest structure and its dynamics as a result of tree growth, harvest and mortality is crucial for a mechanistic understanding of the factors that are modified by forest management and influence biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The fourth forest inventory will continue to record stand dynamics. The main objective is to derive information on stand productivity and changes in stand structures and management intensity at all EPs and to make this information available to all other projects. In addition, terrestrial laser scanning will be repeated on all experimental plots, resulting in data on changes in the three-dimensional stand structure. Furthermore, structural and management intensity indices will be recalculated from the forest inventory data, which are suitable for time series analyses of the development of biodiversity under the influence of forest management. In the FOX experiment, where gaps have been created with and without deadwood, above-ground stand dynamics will be quantified by recording regeneration development and crown expansion of the edge trees at yearly resolution. The information on gap dynamics in relation to the management intensity of the stands surrounding the gaps will help to answer the main question of the new experiment: How do diversity, plant, animal and microorganism communities, and ecosystem processes change by altering the abiotic environment due to crown openings and deadwood enrichment?

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories