2013) where local disturbance regimes favour the extinction of forest specialists and the colonization by non-forest ones (Vellend et al. This would disagree with other works showing the importance of forest spatial pattern in the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem functions, especially in highly transformed landscapes (e.g. changes in habitat configuration but not in habitat cover) were much weaker and both positive and negative (see also Fahrig 2017). the reverse process to that analysed here), Fahrig ( 2003) observed a primary effect of habitat loss on biodiversity conservation, while the effects of habitat fragmentation per se (i.e. In a seminal review on habitat loss and fragmentation (i.e. In contrast, the effects of forest expansion on changes in the spatial pattern of the European landscapes are mostly unknown. However, it also promotes a rarefaction and local extinction of species living in open habitats, including butterflies, birds and plants (Plieninger et al. It is largely known that forest cover increase is affecting biodiversity conservation in Europe, with a generalized recovery of forest organisms including threatened species targeted in conservation initiatives (Plieninger et al. Recent works have highlighted that forest transition continues nowadays in Europe, with a net gain of 1.4% of forest surface between 19 detected from the European Space Agency global land cover maps (M. ( 2010) detected an overall increase in forest cover in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century using land cover maps for a specific set of landscape samples. 2005) and, more recently, in the northern Mediterranean Basin (Mazzoleni et al. Indeed, forest transition has been taking place in many European and North American regions since the beginning of the twentieth century (Rudel et al. 2013), yet the overall decline in forest cover has fallen in recent decades due to forest transition (Meyfroidt and Lambin 2011), which has determined a change from net deforestation to net reforestation at both national and regional scales particularly in the northern hemisphere (Rudel et al. ConclusionĬhanges in afforested landscapes are more complex than expected and cannot be solely attributable to forest increase, but also to landscape composition and location across elevation and geographical gradients across Europe.ĭeforestation is a primary land-use change on a world scale (Pagnutti et al.
FOREST MAP EUROPE 0 AD PATCH
These processes also depend on elevation and geographical position, with forest defragmentation concentrated in Northern and Eastern Europe and new patch proliferation in southern and western regions, and in mid-elevation areas. A forest increase promoted the defragmentation of already-existing forests and new patch proliferation in forest-dominated and non-dominated landscapes, respectively. ResultsĪ decrease in landscape diversity in the last decades was not associated to forest increase but to high cropland and low scrub-grassland cover. We obtained data from ESA and GFC land cover maps and other GIS layers and performed a set of GLM on randomly selected 752 landscapes with recent (1990–2012) forest increase. To explore the association of forest cover increase with changes in the spatial pattern of European landscapes, while considering their original landscape composition, geographical position and elevation. However, little is known about these patterns of change and their association with the environmental context. ContextĪ recent forest increase in Europe might drive changes in the landscape pattern, with increasing forest defragmentation and connectivity but decreasing land cover diversity that, in turn, might affect biodiversity conservation. These processes are modulated by geographic factors and might affect functional connectivity and biodiversity conservation in newly forested landscapes. We show that afforestation promotes defragmentation of pre-existing forests and new patch proliferation, in forest-dominated and non-forest-dominated landscapes respectively, while it is not associated to decreasing landscape diversity. Recent afforestation in Europe might involve deep changes on landscape composition and configuration.
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