Tree species composition of a landscape in north-eastern Germany in 1780, 1890 and 2010

Abstract

European forests have been affected by human activities since Neolithic times, especially through fragmentation and conversion into non-native tree plantations. Documenting and understanding why these changes have occurred at fine spatial scales will aid forest management in planning, ecological conservation and restoration activities and will inform scientific research regarding biodiversity. While coarse-scale changes in forest cover on the scale of centuries have been previously demonstrated in mapping and statistical exercises, Europe-wide fine-scale datasets on changes in tree species composition are rare. Here, we demonstrate tree species compositional changes in 1780, 1890 and 2010 at a fine scale in a north-eastern German landscape. The area of forest with available data on the main tree species covered ~80 per cent of the total forest area (111 171 ha) in 1780, ~90 per cent of the total forest area (93 999 ha) in 1890 and 100 per cent of the forest area in 2010. Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and oak (Quercus robur L. and Q. petraea (Mattuschka) Lieblein) both declined in terms of coverage from 40 to 16 per cent, while the coverage of pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) increased from 36 per cent to more than 70 per cent. The fine scale at which these changes have been documented allows inferences to be made on the likely changes in the herbaceous understorey composition and possible socio-economic drivers. The historical maps produced by this study will be of value for both further scientific research and forest management.