The Heureka Research Programme - Mistra

analysis is an important next step to make habitat suitability models moreefficient as planning tools in forest management.We examined the spatial functionality of old spruce-dominated forest inseveral regions of Sweden through the perspective of organisms with differentecologies, in terms of their area requirements and mobility (Mikusinski &Edenius 2006), using virtual species representing a gradient of these two ecologicaltraits. The main tool was habitat suitability modeling. Countrywideestimates of forest variables derived from satellite data and field data from theNational Forest Inventory using the kNN-method (k-Nearest Neighbor)were used as sources of habitat distribution data. We found large regionalvariations in old spruce forest functionality depending on natural conditionsand forest history. The relationship between functionality and amountwas largely curvilinear. Areas with >10% of old spruce forest generally havehigh levels of spatial functionality, whereas high variation in functionalitywas observed in areas with little old spruce forest cover. We found that ourmethod for multiple-scale assessment of old forest functionality may be helpfulin regional forest biodiversity planning.Effective management of biodiversity in production landscapes requires aconservation approach that acknowledges the complexity of ecological andcultural systems in time and space (Mikusinski et al. 2007). This includesextensions of current methods for conservation planning to consider therelative contributions to conservation objectives of different forms of management,the effects of changes in land use, and the requirements for practicalimplementation. As a contribution to meeting the challenge posed byCountdown 2010, we presented an example of a planning exercise that useda spatially explicit conservation planning tool to incorporate the knowledgeof regional experts on biodiversity. We placed this exercise in the context ofthe requirements of Countdown 2010 by presenting a general framework forforest conservation planning.Using an extensive data-set of species occurrences and forest and landscapevariables, we analyzed the habitat-occurrence relationships of nineresident boreal forest bird species in Sweden (Edenius et al. submitted). Wedecomposed the variation at different sampling units and tested the effect ofhabitat on bird occurrence at different spatial scales using generalized mixedeffects models (GLMMs). The ability of the habitat variables to explain theoccurrence patterns was highly variable. Large variation at the smallest scalesuggests that further research should be directed towards understanding theimportance of both fine-scale variation in habitat suitability and detectionprobability in order to increase the predictive power of species-habitat models.We have demonstrated the usefulness of our biodiversity assessmentapproach in case studies covering regional conservation planning at countyscale (Örebro) and long-term planning at the forest estate level (Remningstorp,Sundsvall, Krycklan). We have also co-operated within the Heurekaprogram, by participating in efforts to find optimal solutions to combine high54