After five centuries of selective cutting in the boreal Fennoscandian forest there was a shift to stand replacing harvest (clear-cutting) in the 1940s. This shift altered light conditions experienced by the forest understory profoundly, from semi-open conditions to light regimes altering between very open in the recently clear-cut forest to very dense some decades later. In this study, we investigated the long-term effects of clear-cutting on vascular plants and bryophytes. Our study system consists of twelve pairs of mesic spruce forests in Southeastern Norway, with a previously clear-cut, but now mature stand and a near-natural forest within each pair. Vascular plant cover was almost twice as high in the near-natural than in the mature, previously clear-cut forest sites, despite similar standing volume and light availability. Overall, previous clear-cutting did not have long-term effects on species richness, but vascular plant species richness was more responsive to soil Ca, a key driver of plant community composition, in the near natural forests. Likewise, the community composition showed a stronger association with soil chemistry in near-natural forests, suggesting that management alters natural drivers of understory communities. The long-lasting effects of clear-cutting was distinct for understory cover and mainly driven by common species such as the keystone species Vaccinium myrtillus , which was substantially less abundant in previously clear-cut stands. • Near-natural forests had nearly double vascular plant cover vs previous clear-cuts. • Bilberry abundance was much lower in previously clear-cut forests. • Clear-cutting did not reduce overall species richness after 50–80 years. • Soil Ca strongly influenced vascular plant richness in near-natural forests. • Long-term forestry effects modify natural drivers of plant communities.
Asplund et al. (Fri,) studied this question.