CAPERCAILLIE (TETRAO-UROGALLUS) LEKKING SITES IN FRAGMENTED FINNISH FOREST LANDSCAPE

The location of Capercaillie lekking sites was compared in forest mosa ics of different level of fragmentation. In north Finland the stand ch aracteristics of the lekking sites did not differ from those of random ly selected stands in the 1950s judged from forestry maps and stand re gisters. In the 1980s, when forestry had considerably altered stand st ructure, lekking stands were older, larger and had a higher timber vol ume than random stands. These features evenly changed from the lek cen tre to the distance of 4 km, to which distance the adjacent areas were assessed. Southern and central Finnish analyses, based on topographic maps, showed that the proportion of forest distinctly decreased with increasing distance from a lek centre, up to a distance of 1-1.5 km. T he average patch size of lekking stands were largest in the north (whe re both cut areas and remaining stands are large) and smallest in cent ral Finland dominated by fine-grained forest landscape. The results ar e discussed in terms of landscape ecology and forestry planning.