Doutoramento em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de LisboaBiodiversity is important for forest ecosystem health maintenance and sustainable functioning
and therefore its conservation is significant in all types of forests, including plantations. The
Mediterranean region is known as a biodiversity ‘hotspot’, but also as an area with recently
established forest plantations, that are criticized for the low level of biological diversity and
frequent forest fires. Therefore, including biodiversity assessment in forest plantations
management planning might benefit forest conservation, fire prevention and land some novel
ecosystem services.
Here we attempted to investigate: (1) which biodiversity indicators could be considered in
forest management planning, (2) how to assess and what is the state of biodiversity at a stand
level in plantation forests of northwestern Portugal, (3) how to use stand-level indicators to
assess landscape biodiversity aspects in plantation forests in northwestern Portugal?
Results demonstrated that: (1) the most convenient for forest managers with various
backgrounds is to consider structural indicators in integrating biodiversity in forest
management planning; (2) structural indicators such as tree species indicator, mean diameter
(cm) and shrub biomass (Mg ha-1) are suitable for stand level biodiversity assessment. Pure blue
gum stands on low-quality sites with shrub regenerating by seed had the lowest mean
biodiversity, while mixed stands with a dominance of pine, on best-quality sites with shrub
regeneration by resprouting had the highest mean biodiversity; (3) using umbrella species
concept is suitable for the landscape level biodiversity assessments, and thus, here is estimated
the red kite (Milvus milvus) nesting habitat suitability; the results suggested that the least
favourable habitat would be in pure blue gum plantations, while mature cork oak forest would
serve as the most appropriate long-term habitat.N/
