The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside polypore communities

Abstract

Preserving streamside forest habitats or buffer strips is considered to reduce forestry-related biodiversity loss in commercial forest landscapes. However, it is still unclear what type of management in and near streamside forests can be undertaken without compromising their biodiversity and natural change through succession. Using a before–after, control–impact study design, we tested the impacts of forested buffer strips (15 or 30 m wide, with or without selective logging), preserved after clear-cutting, on the changes of polypore communities in streamside boreal forests in Finland. Manipulations in 28 sites produced four treatment classes, the community compositions of which were compared with seven unmanaged controls before and 12 years after the manipulations. The polypore community composition in 15 m wide buffer strips changed differently than that in controls and resembled the community composition typically found in production forests. Moreover, selective logging tended to homogenize polypore communities. These responses of polypore communities indicate that the natural biodiversity and succession of streamside forests was disturbed in both 15 m wide and selectively logged buffer strips. Streamside forests in nonlogged 30 m wide buffer strips seemed to retain the natural polypore community composition and succession, at least during the 12-year period.