Owner attitudes and landscape parameters drive stand structure and valuable habitats in small-scale private forests of Lower Saxony (Germany)

Small-scale private forests cover large areas in Europe and often contain structures and habitats of high nature conservation value that are increasingly put under pressure due to a rising interest in fuelwood and wood products. We investigate the distribution of variables like living wood and deadwood volumes, management intensity, diversity and density of tree-related microhabitats recorded in 81 small-scale private forest parcels in the Lower Saxon Hills (northwest Germany). We provide an assessment of the influence of predictors like the individual forest owners’ goals and activities, as stated by them in a quantitative survey, as well as topographical parameters like parcel size, slope, landscape fragmentation and forest continuity. Our results indicate that there are two types of valuable structures in small-scale private forests: (a) slowly evolving structures like large-diameter living wood and tree-related microhabitats which mostly depend on topographical parameters that act on longer time scales, and (b) fast evolving structures like deadwood that are influenced by both owner attitudes and topographical parameters. The resulting implications for integrative forest and conservation management are discussed.