Abandonment status and long-term monitoring of strict forest reserves in the Pannonian biogeographical region

Abstract

The Pannonian region is situated in the Carpathian basin where forests have been used intensively for centuries. The article shows a map and a tabular overview of the forest reserves featured as forests “left for free development” of the region, and presents the most important stand structural characteristics of beech, mesophytic and thermophilous deciduous forests surveyed recently. The sampling points of six sites were selected to provide preliminary descriptive statistics according to the main types and abandonment status groups (recently managed, long abandoned and old-growth or primary stands) of these forests. In old-growth and primary stands the composition (list and mixture ratio of tree species) and stand structure characteristics [gap class distribution, stem density, distribution of relative crown classes and broad diameter at breast height (at 130 cm) classes, density of thick snags, and the amount of lying dead wood] proved to be similar to other European deciduous natural forests, while the abandoned and recently managed stands indicate that these forests are in a transitional stage towards natural ones.

Keywords:

• Forest ecology
• stand structure
• temperate zone
• deciduous forest
• Hungary

Acknowledgements

The Hungarian Forest Reserve Program is supported by the Deputy State Secretariat for Nature Conservation and Environment Protection, Ministry of Rural Development of Hungary. The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped to improve our paper.