Studying forest resilience at Dürrenstein wilderness area
In the 2017 field season our goal is to learn about forest recovery and resilience by studying the forests of the only wilderness area (IUCN cat. I) in Austria.
Field work is currently in progress within RESIN, focusing on the Dürrenstein wilderness area in southern Lower Austria. The area is both highly scenic and extremely difficult to sample, as the forested slopes are frequently >45° in inclination and are veined by deep ravines and drops of sheer rock.
These particular features are also the reason that the area still features many forests that have not been subject to management interventions for a long time, including the only primeval forest left in the Eastern Alps (Rothwald primeval forest). Within RESIN we are using the varied management history of the area to study how forests recover from management regarding their structure, function, and composition.