Diverging consequences of past forest management on plant and soil attributes in ancient oak forests of southwestern Iran

The oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) semiarid forests of western Iran are among the oldest and host a remarkable diversity. However, originally high were largely converted to coppices submitted long history traditional management human disturbances. We investigated effect past forest structure on soil properties vegetation diversity two systems: coppice?with?standards stands abandoned after an intense period exploitation (CWS) (HF) low intensity management. selected in each system three 1–2 ha sampled 30 plots measure diversity, using structural indices and, main factors including bulk density, nutrients, organic carbon porosity. found higher species HF than CWS with respectively 7 woody former only 4 latter as well complexity. Plant composition differed also between systems multivariate analyses revealed clear associations particular porosity for density texture CWS. In fact, contents nutrients total nitrogen (0.28 vs 0.15%), available phosphorus (22.82 15.47 ppm), 0.15 matter (2.58 1.61%) whereas soils showed (1.39 1.29) lower (47.66 51.50%). This study thus legacy actions different components ecosystem. concluded that conservative was more favourable protection coppicing system.