Conservation and ecology of open forests

Prof. Dr. Thomas Gottschalk

Date: February 4, 2021
Time: 2 pm (s.t.)
Place: via zoom. Please register by sending an email to grk2300@uni-goettingen.de.

Open forests are known to be characterized by high biodiversity. Those forests can result from tree removal by large herbivores of the megafauna (>45 kg) and other natural disturbances like severe fires, hurricanes, ice, drought and endemic pests. For several centuries within the former millennium, anthropogenic open forests were common in Central Europe, which were characterized by canopy openness dependent on human disturbances. Due to the loss of these forests as well as the loss of the megafauna and the implementation of a “subnatural forest praxis” huge number of species has been disappeared from forests and currently several species are facing a rapid decline throughout Central Europe. The talk will give an overview on the ecology of open forests and their specialized butterfly community and to show best practise examples how the decline of open forest species can be stopped.