Tree planting is at the forefront of the current environmental agenda to mitigate climate change and tackle the biodiversity crisis. In the United Kingdom (UK), tree planting has been a priority for more than a century and has helped increase woodland cover from a historic low of 5 per cent at the beginning of the 20th century to a current figure of 13 per cent. However, we still know relatively little about the long-term development of woodland creation sites (particularly of native woodlands) over ecologically realistic timescales. We surveyed a chronosequence of 133 temperate woodland patches encompassing 106 woodland creation sites (10–160 years old) and 27 mature ‘ancient’ woodlands (>250 years old), using a combination of field surveys and remote sensing techniques to quantify vegetation structural changes associated with woodland development. Woodland creation sites displayed similar vegetation development patterns to those described for other woodland systems, i.e. a gradual transition as woodlands undergo ‘stand initiation’, ‘stem exclusion’ and ‘understorey re-initiation’ stages, and became more similar to ‘ancient’ woodlands over time. Structural heterogeneity, average tree size and tree density were the attributes that varied the most among woodland developmental stages. In general, structural heterogeneity and average tree size increased with woodland age, whilst tree density decreased as would be expected. Younger sites in stand initiation were strongly dominated by short vegetation, stem exclusion sites by taller trees and older sites had a more even vegetation height distribution. There was a large degree of overlap between the vegetation characteristics of woodlands in understorey re-initiation stages and older ancient woodlands (partly driven by a lack of regeneration in the understorey); these results suggest that it takes between 80 and 160 years for woodland creation sites to develop certain vegetation attributes similar to those of mature ancient woodlands included in this study. Woodland management practices to create canopy gaps and reducing grazing/browsing pressure to promote natural regeneration are likely to accelerate this transition, increase the structural heterogeneity and biodiversity value of woodland creation sites and enable adaptation and resilience to climate change.

中文翻译：

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温带林地创造地的长远发展：从树苗到成熟林地

植树是当前缓解气候变化和应对生物多样性危机的环境议程的重中之重。在英国（UK），植树已成为一个多世纪以来的优先事项，并帮助将林地覆盖率从 20 世纪初的 5% 的历史低点提高到目前的 13%。然而，我们对林地创造地点（尤其是原生林地）在生态现实时间尺度上的长期发展仍然知之甚少。我们调查了 133 个温带林地斑块的时间序列，包括 106 个林地创造地点（10-160 年）和 27 个成熟的“古老”林地（>250 年），结合实地调查和遥感技术来量化与林地发展相关的植被结构变化。林地创建地点显示出与其他林地系统描述的植被发展模式相似的植被发展模式，即随着林地经历“林分开始”、“茎排除”和“林下重新开始”阶段的逐渐过渡，并变得更类似于“古代”林地随着时间的推移。结构异质性、平均树木大小和树木密度是林地发育阶段变化最大的属性。一般来说，结构异质性和平均树木大小随着林地年龄的增加而增加，而树木密度则如预期的那样下降。林分开始的较年轻地点以短植被为主，高大树木和较老地点的茎排除地点具有更均匀的植被高度分布。下层重新启动阶段的林地植被特征与较老的古林地之间存在很大程度的重叠（部分原因是下层缺乏再生）；这些结果表明，林地创建地点需要 80 到 160 年的时间才能发展出与本研究中包括的成熟古代林地相似的某些植被属性。创造树冠间隙和减少放牧/浏览压力以促进自然更新的林地管理实践可能会加速这一转变，增加林地创造地点的结构异质性和生物多样性价值，并能够适应和适应气候变化。