Bird communities in different spruce-tap beech forests of the Ennstal Alps in the Gesäuse National Park

Diploma thesis at the Faculty of Science Center Weihenstephan for Nutrition, Land Use and Environment Freysing Weihenstephan As an important part of many ecosystems and by special characteristics such as good comprehensibility or high autecological knowledge, this work tried to answer the following question by means of bird communities: Which forest population parameters (such as tree species composition or dead wood richness) have an influence on the bird life of the spruce-tap beech forests of the gutter? Based on this question, 12 study areas were arranged along a natural proximity gradient, distinguished by the two components of the hardwood or coniferous wood and the forest complex size. In the period from mid-April to mid-June, three bird population surveys were carried out on both point and line traffic. For the time being, the bird data obtained from it was incorporated into main component analyses and subsequently, together with the respective forest population parameters, into multivariate analyses. The findings on the effects of forest structures on the bird’s census led to the deducing of indicator species for three different forms of spruce-tap beech forests in the gutter. Based on this, the transferability of the results of this thesis to the application possibilities in the Gesäuse National Park as well as the differences between the two mapping methods were discussed. The latter showed that the line-taxation provided the much more reliable and meaningful results compared to point-taxing, and that point-taxing could lead to an underestimation of biodiversity in near-natural, foliage-based habitats. In addition, targets have been developed for the conservation and promotion of valuable forest structures for the bird’s census of the spruce-tap beech forests of the gutter.