Why do we have to increase deadwood in our forests? How much deadwood does the forest need?

Abstract

Why do we have to increase deadwood in our forests? How much deadwood does the forest need? Deadwood plays a key role in the functioning and productivity of forest ecosystem and it is an important feature for the conservation of the biodiversity. In the past land-use and forest management have dramatically reduced the amount of deadwood in the European forests and only in the last decades the important role of the deadwood has been studied and recognised. At the poli-tical/administrative level the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) has recognized the importance of this forest component and the last year Italian Government has requested the regional forest laws and regulations to take into account deadwood and habitat/retention trees in the forest management. It is a current research priority to provide managers of European forests with a baseline of deadwood threshold retention value for decisions for their specific forest type and management target.