Are soil characteristics and understorey composition controlled by forest management? Agustõ Ân Rubio a,* , Rosario Gavila Ân b , Adria Ân Escudero c a Dept. Silvopascicultura, E.T.S.I. Montes, Universidad Polite Âcnica de Madrid, Madrid E-28040, Spain b Dept. Biologõ Âa Vegetal, Fac. Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid E-28040, Spain c Dept. Biologõ Âa Vegetal, E.U.I.T. Agrõ Âcola, Universidad Polite Âcnica de Madrid, Madrid E-28040, Spain Received 16 September 1997; accepted 1 July 1998 Abstract Data from 30 plots of Castanea sativa Miller stands were analysed to study the relationships among soil, understorey composition and management. Floristic cover percentage and edaphic features were separately studied by means of PCA. After that, correlations between ¯oristic and edaphic axes were carried out by means of Pearson product±moment correlation; and ®nally, correlations between ¯oristic or edaphic axes and silvicultural characteristics were also calculated. PCA of soil variables showed differences between stands located on granitic rocks and ¯oristic PCA showed a clear difference between managements. There were correlations between ¯oristic axes and soil or silvicultural measurements, while correlations between soil axes and silvicultural measurements were not signi®cant. The results indicated there were no general trends between soil properties and forest management probably due to deepness and development of soils. The management is the ®rst source of variation on understorey composition: high forests were poorer than coppice stands. There were also differences within coppice stands related to the type of post-harvest practice. Finally temporal changes in nutrient rates were related to the understorey composition, as well. # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Castanea sativa stands; Spain; Coppice; High forest; Disturbance 1. Introduction Mechanisms controlling the pattern of plant species richness in different ecosystems can be outlined by the current theory of species richness (Brown, 1981; Giller, 1984; Begon et al., 1990). Disturbance in a broad sense, mainly anthropogenic (Picket and White, 1985; van der Maarel, 1993) and availability of resources (Grime, 1979) should be probably consid- ered the key factors to explain plant species richness in managed forests. The management of forests produces changes in structure, interfering in self-regulating processes and productivity. Furthermore, these perturbations usually produce alterations of the soil processes, which could themselves drive to more intense transformations of the system in an iterative process in relation to the availability of resources (Larsen, 1994; Halpern and Spies, 1995). Understanding the interactions among perturba- tions conducted by management, soil resource bal- Forest Ecology and Management 113 (1999) 191±200 *Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-1-336-7080; fax: +34-1-543- 9557; e-mail: arubio@montes.upm.es 0378-1127/99/$ ± see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0378-1127(98)00425-3