%0 Research article
%T A relation between historical forest use and current dead woody material in a boreal protected old-growth forest in Finland
%A Rouvinen, Seppo
%A Rautiainen, Anne
%A Kouki, Jari
%D 2005
%J Silva Fennica
%V 39
%N 1
%R doi:10.14214/sf.393
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/393
%X Assessing the human impact on the naturalness and vegetation  characteristics of protected areas is one of the key issues when  designing forest conservation networks in Fennoscandia. We studied the  small-scale, detailed relationship between forest utilization history  and the current availability of dead woody material in a protected  old-growth forest area in North Karelia, eastern Finland. From the study  area of 32.4 ha, all the stumps (diameter ≥ 5 cm and height < 1.3 m,  classified as natural, man-made and of undetermined origin) were  measured using 25 x 25 m sub-plots. Standing and fallen dead trees (dbh ≥  5 cm) were measured on 50 x 50 m plots in an area of 7.8 ha. The  average number of stumps was 130 per ha, and over half of the stumps  were classified as man-made. However, the historical documents since the  1910s showed no logging in the area: some of the largest man-made  stumps probably originated from an earlier time, but most of those  stumps were made considerably later. The variation in the total number  of stumps (per ha) was great (range 0–560/ha, 0–16 m2/ha), with no clear  clustering in space. However, clustering of man-made stumps was  detected. The average volume of pooled standing and fallen trees was 84  m3/ha, with a range of 37–146 m3/ha. The other noticeable man-made  disturbance besides logging was notching of aspens, which has a  scatteredly significant influence on the amount of dead trees. In  conclusion, the protected old-growth forest was not as a whole in a  natural state but showed different degrees of human impact from  virtually untouched patches to quite heavily managed patches. The  results suggest that the number of man-made stumps may be a relatively  quick and easy method of assessing the naturalness of woody biomass  structure in the Fennoscandian boreal forests.