EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - UNESCO World Heritage

3.2 Project novelty and expected contributions
The highly integrated approach employed by the network goes far beyond of what has been
achieved in this field thus far, and for the first time it has the ambition to shed light on the
causes for the spatio-temporal variability so as to help bridge the limited, site- or regionspecific
character of the available information. This shall provide a major advance in this
field, which is bedeviled by the dispersion and scarcity of primeval forests remnants and
differences in data collection modes and methodology, making direct comparisons among
studies, useful modeling and the transfer of knowledge into forest management difficult or
impossible.
4. Workplan
The research conducted in this network has been structured into five distinct but interrelated
research tasks. Tasks #1 and #4 provide the new empirical data basis for the network. Task #3
and #4 narrow the uncertainties in the development of the primeval forests mimicking toolbox
within the task #5.
4.1 The research tasks
Task 1: Comparative study of current ecological patterns and processes in primeval forests
and of their spatial variability in the temperate zone of Europe; Task description and
approach: The task aims to reveal the causes of the differences in structure, texture,
disturbances, regeneration and the overall dynamics under a range of environmental and
genetic causes responsible for the variability of observed patterns. For that purpose, series of
primeval forests on distinct sites will be composed in numbers assuring a proper replication.
The respective patterns and processes will be studied using existing records and current or
new observations; Task leader: ZVO; Involved partners: GOT, RAK, LJU, BRA, ZVO.
Task 2: Regulation capacity assessment of primeval forests ecosystems; Task description
and approach: We will measure locally, model and on larger scales estimate the regulation
functions of primeval forest, i. e. their capacity to sustain ecological processes and the vital
environmental functions, such slope stability protection, torrent control, retention,
accumulation, filtration and the carbon sequestration. Functions provided by primeval forests
are often assumed superior to functions fulfilled by managed forest. However, this line
argument deserves a scientific scrutiny, as there is a multiple evidence that certain
combinations of these functions can not be achieved at the same time. The corresponding
analysis will draws on results from task #1 and deliver a list of functions worth mimicking for
the task #5. Task leader: DUB; Involved partners: DUB, ZVO, BRA.
Task 3: Analysis of possible temporal variations in temperate primeval forests patterns; Task
description and approach: This task shall detect possible global climate change impacts on
the patterns and dynamics in primeval forests on the backdrop of environmental stochasticity.
Network partners (ZVO, RAK) avail of data from a 50-year-long continuous primeval forests
research and so the approach will lean, beside dendrochronological analyses, on contrasting
current patterns against data taken prior to the rapid onset of the global changes, and against
site and genetic variations as identified in task #1. The results will enable capturing the
emergent trends and making more specific predictions about the future fate of forests
ecosystems. Task leader: TOR; Involved partners: TOR, ZVO, GOT, BRA
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