Biodiversity Seminar: Compositional and Functional Responses to Experimental Understory Removal in the Soil and Ground Vegetation of Former Wooded Pastures Nowadays Abandoned, After Millennia of Overuse

This a joint seminar co-organized by SwissForestLab and the WSL Biodiversity Center.

As in many places in the Central Alps, the forests close to the village of Salgesch/VS were heavily exploited as wooded pastures and for other intensive land use over millennia, which may have caused the severe nutrient deficiencies observed in foliage of dominant trees nowadays. In the Salgesch experiment, forest recovery consecutive to abandonment in the 1960s has been interrupted by the experimental removal of woody understory, thereby partially recreating the former wooded pasture management. This treatment has resulted in a stable increase in both the soil temperature and moisture availability within cleared plots. After 10 years, the thickness of litter layer has been decreased and significant changes were observed in the topsoil properties. The soil mesofauna diversity and soil biological activity have been reduced and the availability of several macro- and micro-nutrients decreased. The ground vegetation has become more xerophilous and thermophilous and its foliage more xeromorphic. All these changes appear then suggestive of reversed ecosystem recovery underway in the former wooded pastures reclaimed by mixed woody species, despite current climate change.

Our public seminars are hybrid, with the option to attend in-person or online.

The Zoom webinar link will be published closer to the date.

The Biodiversity Seminar Series are organized by the WSL Biodiversity Center. Every two weeks, we aim to host a seminar speaker who presents research or outreach on topics relevant to the biodiversity community at WSL. The seminars are public and are usually broadcast online.

To find out more about the WSL Biodiversity Center and a complete list of events, please visit our website. 

Please send an email to events-biodiversity(at)wsl.ch if you would like to be updated on the activities of the WSL Biodiversity Center.