Analisi del paesaggio forestale per l'interpretazione delle relazioni tra biodiversità e forme di humus

The study area was located in the Adamello-Brenta Natural Park (Trento province, Northern Italy). 48 plots were distributed according to a systematic sampling design and were located in two valleys, both on calcareous soils. The climate varied from sub-mediterranean to sub-continental. The sub-mountain belts were dominated by dry beech woods and by manna ash-hop hornbeam woods, sometime planted with Scots pine or mixed with spruce and silver fir coming from higher altitudes. In the mountain level mull beech woods were widespread. In the middle and upper mountain belt, they give way to silver fir and, in the higher altitudes, to spruce woods. Finally, mixed woods dominated by maple and ash were found in the shady slopes and ravines. After the surveys, we provided many indicators of naturalness and biodiversity, which are not usually measured during the planning process. They included number of "great" and habitat trees, the amount of fallen and standing dead wood, the cover of the different vegetation strata. The study of the other most important biometric parameters and of the naturalness and biodiversity indicators, together with the detection of the humus forms in a range of woodlands, gives way to the understanding of the relationships between them.