Youthful landscape
Is it better to manage your landscape as an older
woodland model or as a younger and youthful grassland? It depends. The context of what
the property has on it and what is around it are important factors. But if it
is biodiversity that you are after, then periodic disturbances might be your
answer. Something called the “intermediate disturbance hypothesis” by Connell
(1978) states that heavily impacted landscapes (regularly mown or burned) and
undisturbed landscapes (older mature forest) results in less species richness.
Medium aged forest
But those in-between aged forests, not too young and not too old (“overmature”), tends to have the most species present. This has
been documented for birds (Jokimaki and Suhonen 1993) and butterflies (Blair
and Launer 1997), but obviously this is not the case for all animal types. So to increase
biodiversity on your property it may be advantageous to reduce the amount of
lawn and convert it to woodland plants, while in a heavily wooded landscape it
may be useful to thin the canopy branches or remove a few trees to open it to more sunlight. But then
again, it depends.
Older woodland
No comments:
Post a Comment