Kim Pingoud, Johanna Pohjola, Lauri Valsta. (2010). Assessing the integrated climatic impacts of forestry and wood products. Silva Fennica vol. 44 no. 1 article id 166. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.166

Keywords: carbon stocks; managed forests; silvicultural guidelines; harvested wood products; energy and material substitution; displacement of fossil carbon emissions

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Managed forests serve as a store of carbon (C) and a renewable source of energy and materials. By using forest products as substitutes for fossil fuels or non-renewable materials, emissions from fossil C sources can be displaced. The efficiency of emissions displacement depends on the product, its lifecycle and the fossil-fuel based reference system that is substituted. Forest management practices have an impact on C stocks in biomass and on the annual supply of products and their mix. There are trade-offs between sequestering C stocks in forests and the climatic benefits obtained by sustainable forest harvesting and using wood products to displace fossil C emissions. This article presents an integrated, steady-state analysis comparing various equilibrium states of managed forests and wood product pools that represent sustainable long-term forestry and wood-use strategies. Two climatic indicators are used: the combined C stock in forests and wood products and the fossil C emissions displaced annually by harvested wood products. The study indicates that long-term strategies could be available that are better according to both indicators than forestry practices based on the existing silvicultural guidelines in Finland. These strategies would involve increasing the basal area and prolonging rotations to produce more sawlogs. Further, the climate benefits appear to be highest in case the sawlog supply is directed to production of long-lived materials substituting for fossil-emission and energy intensive materials and recycled after their useful life to bioenergy.

Pingoud, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT, Espoo, Finland E-mail: kim.pingoud@vtt.fi
Pohjola, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 27, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: jp@nn.fi
Valsta, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 27, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: lv@nn.fi

Category : Research note

article id 1321, category Research note

Sofia Bäcklund, Mari T. Jönsson, Joachim Strengbom, Göran Thor. (2015). Composition of functional groups of ground vegetation differ between planted stands of non-native Pinus contorta and native Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies in northern Sweden. Silva Fennica vol. 49 no. 2 article id 1321. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.1321

Keywords: boreal forests; bryophytes; managed forests; introduced species; exotics; lichens; vascular plants

Highlights: Differences in ground vegetation patterns can be linked to tree species, forest stand age and differences in canopy cover; Vascular plant cover was higher in stands of P. contorta than in stands of both native tree species; The overall differences and similarities between P. contorta and the two native conifers were not consistent over the different age classes.

Abstract | Full text in HTML | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Intensified forestry increases the interest in replacing native tree species with fast growing non-native species. However, consequences for native biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are poorly understood. We compared cover and composition of major functional groups of ground vegetation between planted stands of non-native Pinus contorta Dougl. var. latifolia Engelm. and native conifers Pinus sylvestris L. and Picea abies (L.) H. Karst. in northern boreal Sweden. We quantified the ground cover of lichens, bryophytes, vascular plants and ground without vegetation (bare ground) in 96 stands covering three different age classes (15, 30 and 85 years old). Our study revealed differences in ground vegetation patterns between non-native and native managed forests, and that these differences are linked to stand age and differences in canopy cover. Total vascular plant cover increased with increasing stand age for all tree species, with P. contorta stands having higher cover than both native conifers. The ground cover of lichens was, although generally low, highest in stands of Pinus sylvestris. P. abies stands had a lower cover of vascular plants, but bare ground was more common compared with P. contorta. Our results suggest that the use of P. contorta as an alternative tree species in Fennoscandian forestry will influence native ground vegetation patterns. This influence is likely to change with time and future research should consider both temporal and landscape-scale effects from shifting tree-species dominance to Pinus contorta and other non-native tree species.

Bäcklund, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: sofia.backlund@slu.se
Jönsson, The Swedish Species Information Centre, P.O. Box 7007, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: mari.jonsson@slu.se
Strengbom, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: joachim.strengbom@slu.se
Thor, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: goran.thor@slu.se

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