Assessing relationships and trade-offs between productivity, climate impacts, and biodiversity in northern Swedish forests

Society is actively debating the role of rotational forestry in delivering a multitude of ecosystem services, including biomass production, biodiversity, and climate benefits.

Many arguments in this debate are hampered by a lack of information about how delivery of these ecosystem services vary over the full rotational cycle of managed forests relative to recovery from disturbance in natural forests over comparable timescales.

Our project will address this knowledge gap by answering the following questions:1) How do key ecosystem services change over time after harvesting in rotation forestry compared to recovery from wildfire in unmanaged forests? 2) How does rotational forestry impact ecosystem services relative to unmanaged primary Swedish forests (i.e. old growth forests)?3) At what time point during a forest rotation do ecosystem services return to their original state, such that trade-offs between productivity, climate benefits, and biodiversity are minimized?We will measure ecosystem services across two contrasting forest age gradients, one wildfire recovery gradient (spanning 3 and 370-years since stand replacing wildfire) and one rotation forestry gradient (spanning the full age spectrum of a typical 100-year rotation period).

The project has been designed with forestry stakeholders to deliver the data needed to resolve societal debates regarding forest ecosystem services, as well as empower forest owners to optimally manage forests for the climate transition.