The study (Joint Research Centre project 2005S_176-174131) addresses the linkages between forests spatial pattern and forest functions with emphasis on forest biodiversity, forests vulnerability to natural hazards and human pressure and resilience. The rationale of such study is the urgent need to prove the usefulness of the implicit links between forest spatial pattern and actual diversity, to better demonstrate the link between ecosystems spatial parameters and the ecosystem capability to preserve its integrity, host its original biodiversity, resist the influence of damaging factors, to examine links between spatial pattern and ecological issues such as invasive species and wildfire.
The primary objective of the study is to assess the biological functionality of a forest habitat by taking into account forest spatial pattern as a key input for quantitative evaluation of forest vulnerability, resilience and resistance on a multi-scale. By this, the status and trends in space and in time in different ecological regions in Europe and at different scales will be described.
Two approaches for modelling potential forest vulnerability, resilience and resistance (FVRR) are tested within the study:
1. The species specific approach is based on the use of different ecoprofiles related to five species: birds (lesser spotted woodpecker), small mammals (marten), large mammals (wolf and roe deer) and butterflies (lesser purple emperor). The five models are designed in order to evaluate the ecological distance between actual and optimal conditions for each species. The models are for this reason different from traditional habitat suitability models, as the final output variable will not be a suitability index but an overall estimation of FVRR for the selected species.
2. The species unspecific approach is based on the use of a more general ecoprofile oriented model which describes the overall biological functionality of a forest habitat based on general ecology rules. The output result of the model is expressed quantitatively in the same way as the species specific approach, where the output value of FVRR is a measure of the ecologic distance between actual and optimal conditions. The value is a reflection of the general functionality of the ecosystem and not of a single species.