Indagine sulla diversità strutturale in un soprassuolo forestale soggetto a ceduazione

Indices that quantify structural diversity have been adopted by research to specify particular attributes at forest stand level. Nevertheless, their employment has yet to be satisfactory and only a few studies have considered different attributes simultaneously to quantify forest structural complexity. This thesis investigates the structural complexity in a forest stand where coppice thinning treatments have occurred. A diversity index based on the degree of departure from a theoretic completely even distribution of frequencies was tested both on the height of the “tree crown centre” and on the diameter at breast height (DBH) values. For this purpose, cumulative relative frequencies were used. This part of the research was integrated with a point pattern analysis by following a specific approach to investigate relationships between tree stem locations and a given stand structural attribute such as the height of the “tree crown centre”. For this reason, distance-based and correlation-based functions were used. The tested indices showed a clear ability to quantify the differences between observed stand components. Since structural complexity is a quantifiable concept and is related to ecological processes governing forest ecosystems, this research could be a useful contribution to the quantification of forest biodiversity in a perspective of sustainable forest management, with particular reference to the traditional coppice management system.