Assessing the Cumulative Effects of Planting Management on Forest Landscape Dynamics in Northeastern China

A spatially explicit landscape model, LANDIS, was applied to study the long-term cumulative effects of the current planting activities on species abundance and age structure in Youhao Forestry Bureau of Small Khingan Mountains in northeast China. Two simulation scenarios were constructed: the current planting management scenario and the natural regeneration scenario that assumed no planting activities after timber harvesting. The results showed that compared with the natural regeneration scenario, planting management increased distinctly representative coniferous species abundance and conversely decreased representative broadleaved species abundance; planting management altered substantially the representative species age structure across the study landscape.