Evaluation of new forestry practices in North America: does forest management rehabilitat and maintain important ecological processes and structures?

Objective

Around the world sustainable management of forests, including management for ecosystem services and biodiversity is a relatively new goal. To reach these goals protection and restoration actions are taken. As time elapses there is a need for scientific evaluation of these actions. The objective with this project is to evaluate buffer strip retention along small streams in managed forests of coastal British Columbia, Canada. We will evaluate the effectiveness in protecting biodiversity, but also consider rehabilitation effects of the changed microclimate caused by the adjacent logging. The scientific questions will be addressed with field experiments with a process-based approach. We will use bryophytes as indicator organism group, because it is a species rich group and they have been shown to be excellent indicators of an altered microclimate. One of the main objectives with the project is to train Hylander so that he will be developed as an independent researcher.
University of British Columbia is well renowned for its eminent ecological research. Dr. John Richardson, who will mentor Hylander, directs the "Stream and Riparian Ecology Research Laboratory" at the Dept. of Forest Science and coordinates a large project on the ecological effects of logging and bu ffer strips retention. The high quality of the scientific and training expertise of the host, the host department and the host university guarantees that the project will be successful and Hylander's qualities as a researcher will improve. To improve EU's competitiveness in forest ecology and conservation it is important to strengthen the collaboration with researchers in western North America, were a lot of cutting-edge research is done in this field. Besides training Hylander for a future successful care er as a forest ecology researcher in Europe this project will contribute with important knowledge on how to maintain and improve ecological values connected to stream and riparian ecosystems also in Europe.

Field of science

• /natural sciences/biological sciences/botany
• /natural sciences/biological sciences/ecology/ecosystems

Programme(s)

• FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006

Topic(s)

• MOBILITY-2.2 - Marie Curie Outgoing International Fellowships (OIF)

Call for proposal

FP6-2002-MOBILITY-6
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

OIF - Marie Curie actions-Outgoing International Fellowships

Coordinator

UMEÅ UNIVERSITY

Address

Umeå
Sweden

Participants (1)

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Canada

Address

Vancouver, British Columbia