Effects of natural and artificial beech regeneration methods on food diversity and browsing intensity in the Inner Western Carpathians

摘要

The European beech (Fagussylvatica) is one of the most important broad-leaved species in Europe. Beech forests are vulnerable to both climate change and herbivory pressure. Their sensitivity to game browsing depends on forest regeneration methods andstand age influencing vegetation diversity. We investigated the available food supply to and the browsing effect of ungulates on natural and artificial beech regeneration sites of different ages in the even-aged forests of Matra Mountains; Hungary. Density of beech saplings and number of available and browsed shoots of all woody species were estimated seasonally. We found significantly more beechsaplings only in summer, but always significantly more shoots, concurrent lower food diversity and higher browsing impact on beech in the natural than in artifical sites. The highest browsing values for beech were detected when the proportion of the alternative woody food supply was less than 10 %. The proportion of browsed beech shoots in all browsed shoots was lower at the points of a site where other alternative woody species were also accessible to ungulates. We propose to maintain natural species diversity in beech regeneration sites from the very irst period after felling to give ungulate species the chance not to browse the target tree species of forest management, but other preferred food species occurring in relatively high abundance. Based onour results diverse woody vegetation and relatively high abundance of alternative plant food sources could decrease negative ungulate impact not only in artificial monospecies beech regeneration sites, but even in the case of natural beech regeneration.