Welcome to the FunDivEurope Knowledge Transfer Platform

The platform supports communication and knowledge exchange among stakeholders, scientists, policy makers and the public regarding the understanding about the functional significance of biodiversity for the provision of forest ecosystem services in major European forest types. The aim is to understand and quantify how tree species diversity can be used to foster the provision of ecosystem services such as timber production, carbon sequestration and freshwater provisioning.

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Tree diversity: an ecological weapon against pest insects

The reduction of insect herbivory is one of the services provided by tree diversity in forest ecosystems. While it is increasingly acknowledged that the compositional characteristics of tree species assemblages play a major role in triggering associational resistance to herbivores, underlying mechanisms are less well known.

Timber quality vs. biodiversity - a contradiction?

Timber quality describes all the wood characteristics and properties that affect the value recovery chain and the service-ability of end products. In the context of timber production the quality of timber is a major driver for the price of the final product and the income of forest owners. The higher the quality of timber, the easier it is to achieve a ‘good’ price. For construction purposes the attributes dimension, stiffness and strength or dimension stability are most important. Wood properties determinate the quality of timber as well.

Effects of biodiversity on the transmission of foliar fungal pathogens in the German tree diversity experiment BIOTREE

Current theory on transmission rates of plant pathogens predicts a strong influence of host diversity on the degree of infection. We tested this prediction for foliar fungal pathogens on forest tree species, making use of the BIOTREE tree diversity experiment in Germany. We hypothesized that fungal species diversity was positively and fungal pathogen load negatively related to tree species diversity. We conducted analyses at three hierarchical levels, at the plot level, the level of single tree species, and the level of individual fungus species.

The understorey, a forest layer with an underestimated importance for ecosystem functioning

The major forest types in Europe, from the Boreal to the Mediterranean region, all include a variable number of native vascular plant species in the understorey layer (1.3 m height), both herbaceous and woody. In spite of its small stature and biomass this layer can contain 90% or more of the plant species of the forest. The functional role of the understory vegetation has already been shown in previous studies on temperate forests. They can serve as:

Dead wood and nitrogen stocks: the older, the richer

Dead wood (dead trees, branches, stumps and roots in all stages of decay process) plays an important role in element cycling (carbon, nitrogen, water, etc.) and builds-up forest nutrient stocks.

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Department of Economy, University of Alcalá

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