Simulated Long-term Effects of Forest Management Alternatives on Forest Landscape

ZHOU Yu-fei1,2,HE Hong-shi1,3,JIN Long-ru1,2,BU Ren-cang1,LI Xiu-zhen1(1.Institute of Applied Ecology,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Shenyang 110016,China;2.Shenyang Agricultural University,Shenyang 110161,China;3.School of Natural Resources,University of Missouri,Columbia MO65211,USA)

spatially explicit forest landscape model;LANDIS;forest landscape dynamics;Small Khingan Mountains

With spatially explicit landscape model(LANDIS),the dynamics of forest landscape was simulated in Youhao Forest Bureau in Small Khingan Mountains under 3 forest management alternatives,i.e.the actual management under the Natural Forest Protection Project(NFPP),the natural succession scenario and the scenario with harvesting but no planting.The results indicated that different management alternatives had a significant influence on species abundance,spatial pattern,and age structure.Com-pared with the other scenarios,the actual management under NFPP effectively increased the abundance and spatial aggregation of the planted species [red pine(Pinus koraiensis,larch(Larix gmelini),and oak(Quercus mongolica)],decreased the abundance of white birch(Betula phatyphylla).In addition,the abundance of young age classes of tree species increased dramatically by af-forestation during the first 50 years of the NFPP,while the increase of mature and old-growth age classes of tree species and improvement of age structure of tree species would take decades years.