Past land-use affects woodland functioning even after complete ecosystem destruction

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Remote Sensing

Background:

• Woodlands re-established on former croplands after WWI, while some were destroyed and later regenerated.
• Understanding the long-term impacts of historical land use and war disturbances on forest ecosystems is crucial for conservation and restoration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the lasting effects of pre-WWI land use and WWI disturbances on woodland productivity and canopy water content.
• To compare functional attributes between recent (post-1918) and ancient (pre-1830) woodlands in impacted (red zone) and non-impacted (blue zone) areas.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to derive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) as proxies for productivity and canopy water content.
• Analyzed data from 399 recent and 240 ancient woodlands over 8 growing seasons (2017-2024).
• Integrated historical maps and databases to account for pre-WWI land use, WWI disturbances, and environmental covariates using generalized linear mixed models.

Main Results:

• In non-impacted (blue) zones, recent woodlands showed higher NDVI and NDWI than ancient woodlands.
• In impacted (red) zones, recent woodlands had higher NDWI (comparable to blue zone recent woodlands) but similar NDVI to blue zone ancient woodlands.
• WWI disturbances homogenized soil properties, masking pre-WWI land-use effects on productivity (NDVI).

Conclusions:

• WWI disturbances significantly altered soil properties, impacting woodland productivity and erasing historical land-use legacies.
• Canopy water content (NDWI) in re-established woodlands retains a signature of historical land use, likely due to differing plant composition.
• The study highlights the complex, long-term ecological consequences of major historical disturbances on forest ecosystems.