Lifespan and mortality of old oaks – combining empirical and modelling approaches to support their management in Southern Sweden

• Old oaks (Quercus robur L.) play an important role in the southern Scandinavian landscape by providing habitat for a wide range of species, a large proportion of them being currently on the National Redlists. • To provide support for the management of these trees, we review data on oak mortality and formulate a mortality-driven stochastic model analysing interactions between mortality rate, oak recruitment rate into 100–150 age class, and amount of oaks older than 200 years. • Empirical annual mortality rates varied between 0 and 13% with average 1.68%. Trees older 200 years had an average mortality rate of 1.1%. Oaks in the high density forests showed higher mortality (3.2%) as compared to the trees growing in the low density forests (1.2%). A 400-year long modelling exercises indicated that under current mortality rates (regular mortality being centred around 1% annually; and irregular mortality 7% with average return time of 13 years) the long-term maintenance of 20 trees older than 200 years per ha would require an input rate of 1 to 5 trees × year−1 × ha−1 into the 100–150 years old class. • The modelling highlighted the importance of initial oak abundance affecting amount of old trees at the end of shorter (100 years) simulation period.