Determination of stand dynamic and its relationship with understory biodiversity in managed and unmanaged stands of Beech forests (Case study: Safarud forest)

The purpose of this research was to compare the development stages in the managed and unmanaged forests, and the resultant changes on the biodiversity of understory vegetation. This study has been conducted in the beech communities of Ramsar region located in the north are forests of Iran. In order to determine the biodiversity of different development stages, the patterns of development stages (initial, optimal and graded) for each of the understudy zones were determined in two 10ha zones of the beech forests in the north of Iran. In order to study the understory species, 112 releves in an area of 100-m² were done and the percentage of understory species frequency was recorded using Braun-Blanquet Method. Three development stages of initial, optimal, and degraded were observed in both zones, which the highest frequency of polygons in the managed zone are in the initial phase while those in the unmanaged zone were in the degraded phase. The results from the survey on the biodiversity in the phases of the zones showed that in both managed and unmanaged zones, the maximum and minimum richness of Margalef are in initial and optimal stages, respectively. The indices of biodiversity in both managed and unmanaged zones (regardless the phases) revealed that there are no significant differences between the biodiversity of understory species in these two zones.