The use of forest models for biodiversity assessments at the stand levelL

Abstract

There is an increasing demand to include biodiversity assessments as an additional management input within silvicultural decision making. A number of forest models are in use to support forest management planning. However, none of these models was explicitly designed to consider the biodiversity of forest ecosystems and how this may change under different silvicultural treatments. In this paper prominent attributes and measures of biodiversity and the data requirements for their calculation are identified based on a review of the literature. Existing forest models are classified with respect to the general modeling approach (i.e. empirical vs. process-based models), structural attributes and phenomena considered. After comparing the required data for biodiversity assessments and the available output of forest model types, we discuss to what extent existing models can satisfy the information needs for biodiversity assessments at the stand level. The main conclusion is that an extension of existing growth models is needed to incorporate biodiversity issues in forest management planning. Probably the most promising approach lies in the development of the family of distance dependent individual tree growth models because they explicitly address horizontal and vertical structural diversity of forest stands. A major limitation is the lack of information on genetic diversity.