Can the use of continuous cover forestry alone maintain silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) in central European mountain forests?

Chronic browsing and inappropriate stand management are often discussed as causes for recruitment failure of tree species in temperate mixed uneven-aged forests. Continuous cover forestry is thought to produce conditions that are conducive to the recruitment of native shade-tolerant and browse-sensitive tree species such as silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). This study used density-dependent matrix population models parameterized for three main types of fir forests in Europe (53 048 measured trees from 3183 permanent sample plots) to project the effects of Business-As-Usual uneven-aged management (BAU) and three alternative management scenarios (Non-Intervention (NON), Profit Maximization (MAX) and stand management optimized for increasing recruitment (CONS)) on fir population dynamics over 100 years. BAU, MAX and, particularly, CONS improved the population parameters if natural recruitment was sufficient regardless of site, current and historical logging and transient and equilibrium growth rates under NON. In chronically browsed and recruitment-limited fir populations with transient and equilibrium growth rates < 1 under NON, the demographic ageing of fir can only be halted temporarily if silviculture is optimized for conservation, but none of the scenarios can prevent fir from decline. Our results suggest that a number of uneven-aged silvicultural systems, including more profit-oriented, can improve the demography of fir in central European mountain forests. However, they are not a pragmatic method to conserve fir when a population suffers from limited recruitment that causes an unmanaged population to decline.