Slit-shaped gaps are a successful silvicultural technique to promote Picea abies regeneration in mountain forests of the Swiss Alps

Many mountain forests in the Swiss Alps are dense and overmature. The resulting lack of tree regeneration threatens their future ability to provide products and services for humans, e.g., protecting settlements and infrastructure against avalanches. To promote natural regeneration, slit-shaped gaps have been cut since the 1980s in many of Switzerland's Alpine forests dominated by Norway spruce (Picea abies). However, little is known about the success of this silvicultural technique. We sampled 38 gaps in 2001 and 2006 and analysed the density and vitality of P. abies seedlings in these gaps, and monitored the growth and survival of selected seedlings between the two inventories. The gaps analysed were located in upper montane and subalpine P. abies dominated forests in the Vorderrhein valley in the Grisons. The density and vitality of large (10–129 cm tall) and small (<10 cm tall) P. abies seedlings were assessed in three parallel transects running perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of each gap. The mean density of large seedlings increased significantly between 2001 and 2006 from 0.1 to 0.3 seedlings/m², whereas that of small seedlings stayed constant at 0.7 seedlings/m², even though it shifted locally between inventories. Significantly higher regeneration densities were found for gaps with NE–SW orientation (afternoon sun) and for those located at lower altitudes. While in gaps on North-facing slopes large P. abies seedlings were more frequent on the middle transect, in gaps on South-facing slopes they were denser near the lower gap edge which is usually less exposed to direct radiation. As expected regeneration density was significantly higher within the gaps than just outside underneath the adjacent stands for all P. abies seedlings. Damage caused by browsing did not turn out to be problematic in this study site. From the selected 280 small seedlings monitored in 2001, 53% died until 2006, 33% became large seedlings and 14% remained small (<10 cm). Our results suggest that creating slit-shaped gaps is a successful procedure to promote P. abies regeneration in the upper montane and subalpine belt of the northern intermediate Alps and helps to preserve protection forests and their goods and services for the coming generations.