Organisation de la biodiversité forestière : vers une modélisation de la dynamique du sous-bois en fonction des pratiques sylvicoles

In the French Mediterranean region, several forest ecosystems are undergoing significant evolution as a result of historical and ecological factors. Knowledge of how forestry practices may affect the biodiversity of these evolving ecosystems is important for their management. At Mont Ventoux (Vaucluse, southern France), a new, natural dynamic of invasion and expansion of deciduous trees is taking place in existing Pinus nigra var. Austriaca forests, planted as part of a mountain reforestation program in around 1900. Using floristic inventories, the effects of these changes on the understory species were recorded, both taxonomically and functionally (using vital attributes). From this information, four models have been built and compared, linking dendrometric parameters of the forests and the proportion of each vital attribute (biological spectra). The combined evolution of the forest populations and understory populations were then simulated over a period of one hundred years.