Tree stump manipulation - An experimental method to accelerate decomposition in tree stumps to compensate for the shortfall in dead wood substrate

Abstract

Current forestry exploits put a lot of strain on the global ecosystem that all life on earth depends on. Boreal natural dynamic forest environments are turned into sterile clear-cut areas. Forestry exploits also affect the biodiversity by extracting substantial amounts of dead wood substrate. The natural dynamic forest environment cannot keep up the pace to provide the natural cycle with provisioning these natural dynamic environments with dead wood substrate. The goal to become carbon neutral by 2050 makes the extraction of all wood for energy purposes from the forest obsolete. This includes stumps as well. This study aims to determine if the experimental method of stump manipulation can accelerate stump decomposition to create dead wood substrate from tree stumps to avoid the implementation of heavy stump extracting machines which in turn should be beneficial for the forest ecosystem and increase biodiversity. To test the hypothesis if the stump manipulation method actually works, a basic inventory of decay depth on stumps has been made in a forest environment where the owner implements the tree stump manipulation method. The gathered samples have been analyzed by using a basic T-Test. The results presented no hard results that proved that the tree stump manipulation worked. However, there appeared to be indications in the results of decay where further research might provide better results might provide better results if further research is done. Nonetheless, the results also indicated that stumps created by manual felling have a higher number of insects in them compared to stumps that have been mechanically created. With this result in mind, manually manipulating stumps to mimic natural disturbances can be an interesting forestry measure to consider implementing to boost the restoration of exploited forest areas.