Wetlands in monoculture forests – how fire activity and different forest management strategies impact Sphagnum-dominated peatlands

Monoculture forests are now a dominant forest type in Europe. Created for easier management and increased timber production, they are now witnessing many disturbances due to climate change, such as more frequent windthrows, droughts, fires or insect outbreaks. The functioning of forests impacts other elements of the landscape, including peatlands, which also have been affected by various natural and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., drainage) that make them more vulnerable to drying and burning. We aim to recognize how peatland functioning has changed along with changing forest management strategies. For this we studied a Sphagnum-dominated peatland located in the Tuchola Pinewoods – one of the largest Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) monoculture forest in Poland. We used high-resolution multi-proxy palaeoecology including pollen, plant macrofossils and testate amoebae, additionally focusing on a wide range of charcoal analyses: charcoal counts, charcoal morphological types, and Raman spectroscopy. Our results show that the studied peatland experienced several critical transitions in vegetation composition and hydrology over the last 600 years when new forest management techniques were introduced. A reduction in fire activity led to a dominance of Sphagnum and increased peat accumulation rates. Establishment of a monoculture forest further impacted the site and stabilized Sphagnum growth and acidity levels. We believe that these results can be helpful for the improvement of conservation planning for peatlands located in forested areas, especially in monoculture forests.

The study is funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2020/39/D/ST10/00641).