Maintaining the coexistence of forest species of different shade tolerances with close-to-nature forestry

Continuous-cover forestry has the goal of relying on natural regeneration, and maintaining irregular stand structure and tree species mixture. However, maintaining mixture of species with different shade tolerances appears arduous with such a silvicultural system. Successfully managing irregular and mixed forests, relying on natural processes, requires a strong knowledge of the ecology of natural regeneration. In theory, regeneration dynamics depends upon the amount of transmitted radiation: shade-tolerant species dominate the regeneration under closed canopies whereas less shade-tolerant species dominate the regeneration under partially open canopies. Nevertheless, it explains hardly the difficulties faced by forest managers to maintain the coexistence of species of different shade tolerances. The purpose of this research is to define light requirements of two species with contrasting shade tolerances (Fagus sylvatica L. and Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) and, next, determining how understory light can be controlled by forest managers. We find that, contrary to our expectations, the shade-tolerant species outgrow the less shade-tolerant species in all light conditions. We next examine the effects of canopy structure and composition on understory light availability with a model of light interception by heterogeneous canopies. Various silvicultural treatments are tested in order to provide favorable understory light conditions for natural regeneration. The results underline that creating favorable understory light conditions for natural regeneration can be achieved with various regeneration treatments. However, the adequate reduction of stand density depends upon the chosen silvicultural strategies. The outcomes of this study highlight that the control of understory light can be insufficient to maintain the coexistence of species of contrasting shade tolerance, and provide guidelines for the management of understory light in heterogeneous forests.