Human tree-selection behaviour in continuous cover forestry : insights from marteloscope exercises

Sammanfattning

Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) has gained increasing attention as a forest management approach aimed at balancing timber production with biodiversity conservation and promoting resilient forestry. Central to CCF is the selection of individual trees for retention or removal, a process that is inherently shaped by human decision-making. This thesis investigates human tree-selection behaviour by using previous knowledge and material from marteloscope exercises, with the objective of improving the understanding of agreement, conformity and the ecological–economic trade-offs involved in CCF-related decisions. Data from a peer-reviewed publication were analysed in this paper. The data came from a previously conducted marteloscope exercise involving forestry students, where a “trainer” had marked habitat trees as a baseline prior to the exercise. Tree-selection behaviour was analysed using a combination of agreement metrics, conformity indices, logistic regression and spatial indicators, including tree size, dominance, species mingling and location diversity. These methods enabled a detailed assessment of both individual and group-level decision-making patterns across habitat-tree selection and removal scenarios. The results revealed consistently low agreement among participants, confirming findings from previous studies. However, conformity analyses demonstrated that meaningful collective tendencies existed despite low agreement. Distinct decision-making profiles emerged among participant groups, even within a relatively homogeneous educational context. The trainer’s selections were characterised by a strong preference for large, dominant trees in mixed-species neighbourhoods and spatially dispersed configurations, reflecting ecologically informed decision-making. In contrast, several student groups exhibited weaker sensitivity to structural and spatial attributes or prioritised economic outcomes, particularly in removal decisions. Overall, the findings indicate that low agreement is an inherent feature of CCF decision-making rather than a deficiency, reflecting the plurality of valid management pathways. Marteloscope exercises are shown to be valuable tools for both research and training, offering insights into human behaviour, trade-offs and uncertainty in forest management. Enhancing transparency and incorporating behavioural feedback into training may support more consistent and ecologically robust implementation of CCF.