%0 Research article %T Decline of a protected coastal pine forest under impact of a colony of great cormorants and the rate of vegetation change under ornithogenic influence %A Matulevičiūtė, Dalytė %A Motiejunaite, Jurga %A Uogintas, Domas %A Taraškevičius, Ričardas %A Dagys, Mindaugas %A Rašomavičius, Valerijus %D 2018 %J Silva Fennica %V 52 %N 2 %R doi:10.14214/sf.7699 %U https://silvafennica.fi/article/7699 %X

We investigated the impact of a colony of great cormorants on the vegetation of the old growth Pinus sylvestris L. forest on the Curonian Spit peninsula, Lithuania. We studied the characteristics and rates of plant cover changes under varying length and intensity of bird influence. Plant species numbers, as well as the coverage of plants with different ecological requirements, varied according to the period of bird influence, but the resulting vegetation also depended upon the stand elevation above sea level. In our study, the initial increase in plant species richness at the start of bird nesting was not obvious and was of a transient character, due to the weak invasion of non-forest species and the rapid decline of forest plants. The colony area showed obvious and rapid vegetation changes during the investigation period. According to the calculated colony expansion rates, after 6–7 years of impact from birds the tree layer decreased by about four fold; the shrub layer decreased by about two fold; the field layer decreased by about 15 fold; and the dwarf shrub and bottom layers disappeared. The coverage by oligotrophic species decreased by more than four fold, while the coverage by eutrophic species increased by more than 60 fold. After 9–10 years of ornithogenic impact, all the trees were dead, and the protected coniferous forest ecosystem, with its characteristic plant species, had ceased to exist as such.