The aim of this study was to describe preferences of geographic direction of ten, oak-living epiphytic lichen species and how they responded to sun exposure, nearby bushes and trees, bark fissure depth and circumference. The frequency of every species was recorded in arcs of ten degrees around the tree at a height of 130 to 180 cm above the ground. An estimation of the amount of every species in every arc was also recorded. To analyse how the distribution of the lichen species responded to the different factors their concentration for every tree was plotted against the four factors. The distribution of Cliostomum corrugatum had a positive response to high sun exposure and a negative response to a thick layer of bushes and trees.

The European bison is a species which is no longer present in the wild fauna of Sweden. Reintroduction has been proposed in several different forums. Reintroduction is an attempt to reestablish a viable population of a species in an area to which it is native. To make such an operation successful in the long run it is essential to know the attitudes of the stakeholders involved. This study has sensed the attitudes towards reintroduction of European bison to Sweden.

According to the Swedish strategy for forest protection, additionally 40 000 ha productive forestland will be protected in the county of Västerbotten, between 1999 and 2010. A national project was carried out to distinguish the proportion of forest with a high biological value, in all counties. The project resulted in demarcation of small landscape areas or small ?biological value regions? (bvr), with higher concentrations of forests with conservation values and red listed species than the surroundings. In Västerbotten, 26 such bvr?s were identified and the Counties Agency and Forest Agency in Västerbotten developed a regional strategy for forest conservation to standardize the forest protection process.

Stone walls in agricultural land are incorporated in the general protection of biotopes. They are protected because they provide a habitat for endangered species. Therefore it is illegal to carry out proceedings in an area that is included in the protection of biotopes. In order to do that, exemption is needed which can only be granted if there are special reasons. The essay stipulates what these special reasons are.In an exemption errand the interest for nature conservation must be weighed against a public or a private interest.

The attitudes towards nature conservation in forestry are based on the individual forest owner. The theme of the interviews is the opinion on nature conservation in forestry. The purpose of this study is to identify if there is any difference in attitude to nature conservation in forestry according to the age of the forest owner. The study discusses different factors that affect the private forest owners consideration of nature conservation and give an insight in different generations attitude to nature conservation. Other topics that are discussed is if future change of generation will change the consideration of nature conservation in Swedish forestry and what is needed to enhance the interest in nature conservation among forest owners.This study is the result of interviews with a number of forest owners in the county of Uppsala, Sweden.

The Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaorientalis), is a small freshwater cetacean which has recently fallen dramatically in number. It is an endemic species for the Yangtze River and unless drastic action is taken, it risks the same fate as the now functionally extinct Yangtze river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer). Threats to the porpoise are diverse but they have in common that they are caused by man. Development of the river has been made to supply a growing human population with food, hydropower, and to reduce the risk of flooding. These changes have resulted in a degraded habitat for the porpoise.

Pulsatilla vernalis is one of several endangered plant species that benefit from wildfires and small scale disturbance events that repel competing vegetation and create open patches in the vegetation cover. Previous studies argue that Pulsatilla vernalis is decreasing in numbers due to vegetation changes associated with the decrease in wildfires, forest grazing and changes in forest management. In this study, 17 populations of P. vernalis were inventoried in order to examine if soil and/or vegetation structures affect the population structure of P. vernalis (i.e.

All over the world, scientists agree that to succeed with a conservation project, it is important to have a good relationship with the local people. If they do not receive a good impression of the project, they will not be willing to collaborate and the project will probably fail. According to previous studies, there are different factors affecting attitudes to conservation, like the level of education of the participant. Many studies have shown that the higher education the people have, the more positive attitude they have to adjacent conservation areas. Economical factors are also important, it is often stated that having more money results in a better attitude.

The aim of the "Green forest management plans" is to help forest owners to reach the environmental goal of the forestry act. But are they able to do that? Is it possible to plan preservation of species on single estates? How do single-estate-plans differ from a landscape analysis and how can the landscape approach be used in operative planning? This work was initiated to give an answer to these questions. This study was made in a landscape of 4200 ha in Östergötland county, south-eastern Sweden. A lanscape analysis was made and then compared to the Green forest management plans in the same area. The nature conservation areas (areas that were set aside to be managed with environmenatl goals) differed quite a lot between the two alternatives.

The forests in Sweden have, for a long time, been managed intensively. This has led to even-aged stands with few tree species and a lack of dead wood. Therefore, general conservation measures in connection with regeneration felling are important in order to promote biodiversity. Inventories carried out by the Swedish Forest Agency, however, show that about 25 % of the felled area does not reach the level of the Forestry Act, regarding general conservation measures. The aim of my study was to see whether exemptions from the six week notice of reporting regeneration fellings (the Forest Agency demands a report six weeks in advance of fellings), affect the results of the general conservation measures taken.

Old hollow trees of oak contain a large amount of wood mould. Unfortunately, these trees have in the last century been greatly reduced in numbers. It has resulted in that species that depend on these habitats, saproxylic species, have become at risk to decrease in numbers or die out regionally. Previous studies have shown that the volume of wood mould is an important factor for occurrence and population size of saproxylic organisms. The aim of the present study was to examine how the volume of wood mould varies among ash (Fraxinus excelsior), lime (Tilia sp.), maple (Acer platanoides), aspen (Populus tremula) and oak (Quercus robur).

Cultural relict plant species from the Nordic countries have been collected by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) for the purpose of conservation. To ensure high seed vitality in store, regular germination tests need to be conducted. It is important to get a correct viability status, but the knowledge of seed dormancy in the cultural relict plants is often poor. The objective of this study was to investigate how seed dormancy is affected by cold stratification. The study includes 31 accessions from 28 species with the purpose of establishing germination protocols.

The species in the genus bumblebees (Bombus) are important pollinators. In the world there are 250 bumblebee species and there are 34 species in Norway. The purpose of this study is 1) to assess changes in the species composition of bumblebees in twenty different places in Norway that have been inventoried first one time between 1939-1960 and the second time in 2012, and 2) to relate species richness and distributions to current landscape composition with the aid of orthophotos. In this study, I have used regression analyzes on the different bumblebee species that were present or absent at the inventory, using the premises of the following variables: low or high altitude, latitude, longitude and seven different types of land use (farmland, building/plots, open land/pasture, forest, wetland and open or snow-covered ground above the tree line) to see if there was any relationship between each species and the different variables. I have not analyzed what the landscape looked like at the first inventories and therefore we cannot say whether it has changed and if that is why species number has decreased. This would be interesting to study further and to see if there is any relationship between landscape changes and bumblebee?s species decline.

Piles of deadwood are often retained in forests after management to support the biodiversity ofsaproxylic organisms which depend on deadwood to survive. Any knowledge about the crucial role ofpiles as suitable habitat of saproxylic organisms compared to single distributed deadwood objects thatare around the piles would help conservation actors to motivate more forest owners to supportsaproxylic organisms during their management. Therefore to give facts to this the saproxylic fauna ofdifferent pile positions (up and low) was studied and compared to distributed deadwood samplesaround each pile. Our study was focused on saproxylic beetles. Some other parameters such asdiameter, deadwood volume, pile volume and decay stage were assessed to define any effect.

Low stumps represent on their own up to 80% of the dead wood remaining on clear cuts and therefore supply suitable habitat for saproxylic insects i.e. insects depending on dead wood for their survival. Recent stump harvesting activities threaten this substrate of ecological importance and increase the anthropogenic negative impacts on these species. Because of technical and environmental reasons (nutrient leakage, erosion) guidelines for stump harvesting recommend to retain stumps standing in wet parts of clear cuts. However, stumps in wet positions might not be a satisfactory substrate for saproxylic insects and therefore might not be as much used as stumps in dry positions.