PoToMa

Climate change causes rising temperatures, precipitation deficits, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. These stress factors compromise the vitality of forest stands and promote large-scale bark beetle infestations, particularly in young spruce monocultures, resulting in widespread tree dieback across Germany. The common practice of removing deadwood from such sites causes substantial nutrient losses and can impede natural forest regeneration. At the same time, societal and political expectations regarding forest ecosystem services are rising. The PoToMa project therefore aims to compare different strategies of deadwood management in commercial spruce forests at mid-elevation sites.

The project's central question is whether the retention of standing or lying deadwood creates favorable microsites for seed germination and the establishment of pioneer and target tree species, and how deadwood influences the ecosystem's nutrient dynamics and exports. The objective is to assess whether the retention of dead wood—compared to conventional salvage harvesting practices—promotes sufficient natural forest regeneration while simultaneously providing ecological and economic services, thereby enabling the sustainable development of climate-resilient and economically viable forest stands in calamity areas.