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- Berglund, Håkan, 1967-
(author)
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Biodiversity in fragmented boreal forests : assessing the past, the present and the future
- 2004
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aims of this thesis are to (1) analyze the predictability (indicators) of plant and fungal species diversity in old-growth forests, and (2) assess the history and biodiversity of woodland key habitats (WKHs) and their potential to maintain species diversity in fragmented boreal forest landscapes. Predictability was explored in Granlandet nature reserve, an unexploited landscape composed of discrete old-growth Picea forest patches of varying size isolated by wetland, reflecting conditions of insular biota at stochastic equilibrium. Data from 46 patches (0.2-12 ha) showed that most species were rare. However, species richness and composition patterns exhibited a high degree of predictability, which strengthen the possibility to apply biodiversity indicators in old-growth forest stands. Area was a key factor. The increase in species richness starts to level out at 2-3 ha. Large patches host more Red-list species in their interiors than do small ones, i.e. stand size is an important qualitative aspect of old-growth habitat. Nestedness emerged in relation to area but also in equal-sized plots. Structural complexity and habitat quality were important for species richness and compositional patterns, and small habitats of high quality could harbor many rare species. Monitoring of wood-fungi on downed logs showed that species diversity on downed logs changed over periods of 5-10 years and that the occurrences of annual species were unpredictable. It is suggested that monitoring of species with durable fruit bodies (mainly polypores) is likely to be a feasible approach to obtain comparable data over time.Assessments of biodiversity of WKHs were performed in two areas with contrasting histories of forest exploitation, namely in south boreal and north boreal Sweden. Analyses of the history of 15 south boreal WKHs showed that fire-suppression, selective logging until mid-20th century and abandonment by modern forestry has shaped their forest structure. These WKHs are not untouched forests, they lack key structural components and harbor few Red-list species. Artificial interventions to restore natural processes and patterns are needed to further increase their suitability for threatned species. Modeling analyses of species richness in 32 WKHs in north boreal Sweden, some of which have not been isolated by modern forestry until recently, indicated an excess of crustose lichen species, i.e. WKHs may face delayed species extinctions. By contrast, the results indicate that wood-fungi have tracked the environmental changes. Differences in substrate dynamics between epiphytes on living trees and species growing on decaying logs may explain the diffeence between species groups. The results indicate that population densities of Red-list species were low, which may result in further depletion of species diversity.Continuing species declines and extinctions are likely if not conservation of WKHs are combined with other considerations in th managed forest landscape. Both WKHs and their surroundings must be managed and designed to maintain biodiversity over time. For a successful future conservation of boreal forest biodiversity monitoring of WKHs must be combined with monitoring of refeence areas.
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- Berglund, Håkan, et al.
(author)
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Nested plant and fungal communities : the importance of area and habitat quality in maximizing species capture in boreal old-growth forests
- 2003
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In: Biological conservation. - 0006-3207. ; 112:3, s. 319-328
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Knowledge of the distribution of rare species is crucial for species conservation in fragmented habitats. Species communities often exhibit nestedness, i.e. species in species-poor sites comprise a subset of richer ones. Thus, rare species are confined to species-rich sites. We evaluate whether plant and fungal communities in 46 old-growth spruce forest patches (0.17–12 ha) exhibit nestedness. The question whether a single large patch or several small patches capture most species (i.e. the SLOSS-issue) is evaluated in combination with species saturation analyses. All species groups exhibited significant nestedness. Area was generally related to nestedness, i.e. rare species were over-represented in the largest patches. Species saturation analysis indicated that large patches accumulated more Red-list species in patch interiors than small patches. Thus, rare and Red-list species were best captured in large patches. However, nestedness also emerged in equal sized sample plots, i.e. rare species were over-represented in high quality habitats. Thus, small habitats of high quality should not be neglected in a conservation perspective.
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- Berglund, Håkan, et al.
(author)
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Predictability of plant and fungal species richness of old-growth boreal forest islands
- 2001
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In: Journal of Vegetation Science. - 1100-9233 .- 1654-1103. ; 12:6, s. 857-866
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The fragmentation and deterioration of old-growth forest habitat by modern forestry have become a major threat to species diversity in Fennoscandia. In order to develop a conservation strategy for the remaining diversity it is essential to identify the existing diversity and to develop appropriate conservation and monitoring programs. For these purposes indicators of conservation value for administrative prioritization are required. This study examines the predictability of plant and fungal species richness on two spatial scales on 46 isolated old-growth forest islands (0.17-12 ha) in a forest-wetland mosaic. We explore (1) to what extent area, isolation and stand structure variables can explain the variation in species richness and (2) if richness patterns of individual species groups correlate. Isolation showed no relation to species richness. Area explained 50-70% of the variation in total species richness and was positively related to the density of crustose lichens and Red-list species in island interiors. Stand structure variables explained 28-66% of the residual variation in total species richness after controlling for island size, and 15-73% of the variation in density of species in island interiors. The highest predictability of species richness was found among substrate-specific fungi and Red-list species. Different stand structure variables were found to explain richness in the different species groups, and only among a few species groups species richness correlated. Thus, species richness of one single species group is unlikely to be a good indicator for total biodiversity. The results show that measurements of stand size and stand structure variables may be a strong complementary tool. and sometimes a substitute to extensive species inventories when one aims to estimate and monitor plant and fungal species diversity in old-growth Picea abies forests.
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- Berglund, Tomas, et al.
(author)
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An obstacle-avoiding minimum variation B-spline problem
- 2003
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In: Proceedings. - Los Alamitos, Calif : IEEE Communications Society. - 0769519857 ; , s. 156-161
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We study the problem of computing a planar curve, restricted to lie between two given polygonal chains, such that the integral of the square of arc-length derivative of curvature along the curve is minimized. We introduce the minimum variation B-spline problem, which is a linearly constrained optimization problem over curves, defined by B-spline functions only. An empirical investigation indicates that this problem has one unique solution among all uniform quartic B-spline functions. Furthermore, we prove that, for any B-spline function, the convexity properties of the problem are preserved subject to a scaling and translation of the knot sequence defining the B-spline.
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- Berglund, Tomas, et al.
(author)
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Epi-convergence of minimum curvature variation B-splines
- 2003
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- We study the curvature variation functional, i.e., the integral over the square of arc-length derivative of curvature, along a planar curve. With no other constraints than prescribed position, slope angle, and curvature at the endpoints of the curve, the minimizer of this functional is known as a cubic spiral. It remains a challenge to effectively compute minimizers or approximations to minimizers of this functional subject to additional constraints such as, for example, for the curve to avoid obstacles such as other curves. In this paper, we consider the set of smooth curves that can be written as graphs of three times continuously differentiable functions on an interval, and, in particular, we consider approximations using quartic uniform B- spline functions. We show that if quartic uniform B-spline minimizers of the curvature variation functional converge to a curve, as the number of B-spline basis functions tends to infinity, then this curve is in fact a minimizer of the curvature variation functional. In order to illustrate this result, we present an example of sequences of B-spline minimizers that converge to a cubic spiral.
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- Berglund, Tomas, et al.
(author)
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The problem of computing an obstacle-avoiding minimum variation B-spline
- 2003
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- We study the problem of computing a planar curve restricted to lie between two given polygonal chains such that the integral of the square of arc- length derivative of curvature along the curve is minimized. We introduce the Minimum Variation B-spline problem which is a linearly constrained optimization problem over curves defined by B-spline functions only. An empirical investigation indicates that this problem has one unique solution among all uniform quartic B-spline functions. Furthermore, we prove that, for any B-spline function, the convexity properties of the problem are preserved subject to a scaling and translation of the knot sequence defining the B-spline.
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