Ricerc@Sapienza

Most terrestrial plant, fungi and animal species need forests, where an extremely complex network of biotic interactions occurs.
Overstorey stand structure has a key role in driving biodiversity patterns, also through tree related microhabitats and deadwood. Understorey vegetation can modify local environmental conditions affecting tree seedling establishment and predation by herbivores. Small mammals with scatter-hoarding habits act as seed predators and dispersers, thus influencing tree species regeneration, and in turn forest productive and ecological functions.
Coppice systems exploit the ability of deciduous tree species of generating new stems from the cut stump. While in Europe only about 5% of forests regenerate as coppice, in Italy coppice is applied on about 50% of forests.
As a coppiced forest overstorey regenerates, diverse environmental factors shift: understorey composition varies mediated by plant functional traits, and in turn understorey interactions with other ecosystem components change.
Several studies focused on these individual mechanisms, however the effect of management practices on forest biodiversity is given by the interplay among several different ecosystem components. This project has the goal of understanding the mechanistic relationships between forest management, overstorey stand structure, understorey functional traits, and small mammal populations in deciduous oak coppice forests.
Our specific aims are to quantify the effects of coppice regeneration on small mammal species abundance. We will focus on the role of on food resources and habitat quality, understorey functional traits, deadwood and tree microhabitats.
The study will be performed in Tuscany (Italy) across 12 coppiced stands dominated by Turkey oak that encompass different regeneration phases. The sampling will focus on overstorey structure, understorey species and functional diversity and small mammal species abundance.