Resource description:
The majority of Swedish forest are secondary forests that are managed commercial forests with little diversity in species and structure. Only a small part is made up of primary forests that have experienced limited direct human impact.
So far, it has not been known how primary forests and managed secondary forests react to drought. In a new study published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, a team of researchers led from Lund, analysed how the drought of 2018 affected the forest types. “The results showed that secondary forests in Sweden were more affected by the drought than primary forests were,” says Anders Ahlström, researcher in physical geography at Lund University.
Primary forests are rare in Sweden and in Europe. They represent the most untouched forests we have left, and they inform us of how nature looks and how it functions without major direct human impact. The forests, therefore, are especially important in understanding how environmental changes and human land use affect ecosystems and their processes.
Author/Contact:
Julika Wolf, Johanna Asch, Feng Tian, Katerina Georgiou and Anders Ahlström