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Abstract

Large areas of the German forests are privately owned. Many of these stands are small, to very small in size. In Thuringia, 63% of the private forests are under the proprietorship of woodland owners; contracted areas < 20 ha, covering 22.6% of the Thuringian forest area (BMVE L 2004). This ownership structure results from the division of cooperatives since the 13th Century. Due to distributions of rural estates between heirs and additional sales, the parcel size has been further diminished throughout the last decades and centuries. As a result of this development, and changing interests of woodland owners in these forest stands, an economically reliable management seems to be hardly possible. In the present article four spatially separate stripped forest stands were investigated in Western Thuringia, Germany. These stands were analyzed with regard to their tree species composition, growing stock and structure. The results were compared with data from two coppice and two coppice with standards stands in Thuringia.
T
o our knowledge this is the first investigation of this forest type. One reason for this lack of information may be the lack of a management perspective for these stands.
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n the mature stands a high number of tree species was recorded. In the farmers’ forest stands 14 species were detected, in the coppice and coppice with standards stands up to 17. However, by analyzing the regeneration stratum, a future decline of species richness is apparent due to severe deer browsing by high ungulate populations. Species such as sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) and European ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) are much more affected by browsing than European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). Compared to regularly managed forests, stand volume and basal area are high in the farmers’ forests (up to 805 m³ ha-1 respectively 53 m² ha-1). In the coppice with standards stands the values range to 537 m³ ha-1 (stand volume) and 44 m² ha-1 (basal area), in the coppice stands to 500 m³ ha-1 (stand volume) and 38 m² ha-1 (basal area). For the description of species diversity the Evenness (Pielou 1966) was calculated. A mean of 0.58 was calculated for the farmers’ forest. For the coppice with standards and the coppice stands means of 0.63 and 0.66 were computed. The mean values for the diversity (Jost 2006, 2007) are 2.86 (farmers’ forest), 3.61 (coppice with standards) und 3.75 (coppice). A clumped stand structure could be detected mainly in the coppice with standards and coppice stands, whereas the stand structure in parts of the farmers’ forests was regular. The decline in species richness and the high growing stocks can be interpreted as the result of missing silvicultural interventions and insufficient hunting activities.