title: Varying rotation lengths in northern production forests: Implications for habitats provided by retention and production trees.
abstract: Because of the limited spatial extent and comprehensiveness of protected areas, an increasing emphasis is being placed on conserving habitats which promote biodiversity within production forest. For this reason, alternative silvicultural programs need to be evaluated with respect to their implications for forest biodiversity, especially if these programs are likely to be adopted. Here we simulated the effect of varied rotation length and associated thinning regimes on habitat availability in Scots pine and Norway spruce production forests, with high and low productivity. Shorter rotation lengths reduced the contribution made by production trees (trees grown for industrial use) to the availability of key habitat features, while concurrently increasing the contribution from retention trees. The contribution of production trees to habitat features was larger for high productivity sites, than for low productivity sites. We conclude that shortened rotation lengths result in losses of the availability of habitat features that are key for biodiversity conservation and that increased retention practices may only partially compensate for this. Ensuring that conservation efforts better reflect the inherent variation in stand rotation lengths would help improve the maintenance of key forest habitats in production forests.
authors.affiliation: Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, SLU, Box 49, Rörsjöv 1, 230 53, Alnarp, Sweden. adam.felton@slu.se.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Felton
authors.affiliation: Skogforsk, Science Park, 75183, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sonesson
authors.affiliation: Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, SLU, Box 49, Rörsjöv 1, 230 53, Alnarp, Sweden.
authors.forename: Urban
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lämås
authors.affiliation: SLU, Skogsmarksgränd, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lundmark
authors.affiliation: SLU, Skogsmarksgränd, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Annika
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nordin
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, SLU, Box 7044, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ranius
authors.affiliation: National Inventory of Landscapes in Sweden (NILS), Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.|Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, SLU, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jean-Michel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Roberge
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D016468:Forestry / Q000379:methods*; D065928:Forests; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D028222:Picea; D028223:Pinus; D014197:Trees
keywords: Dead wood; Large trees; Rotation length; Thinning; Tree retention