Biodiversity Differences between Managed and Unmanaged Forests: Meta‐Analysis of Species Richness in Europe

Abstract

Abstract:Conservation Biology 41In an attempt to provide a state of the art of the effect of forest management on biodiversity, 42we performed a MA comparing the species richness of managed and unmanaged forests in 47Our MA provides basic ecological knowledge needed for conservation and ecologically 48 sustainable forestry. In this paper, we showed that forest management has a negative effect 49 on the biodiversity of forest dwelling species. Because we were aware of the limitations of 50 our MA, we used caution when discussing the results considering that: (i) the effect is 51 strongly heterogeneous between different taxa; (ii) there is a trend for recovery of biodiversity 52 once management has been abandoned; (iii) no strong conclusion on the effect of different 53 management types could be drawn from our data due to low replication number. The obvious 54 main conclusion of this paper was that research on the subject in Europe was scarce and 55 that more controlled studies may help answer the questions raised. 113always provided negative slopes, except for bryophytes and birds (see Table 3, p. 107). 114Finally, even if the effect of TSA was significant only for carabids, saproxylic beetles and 115 fungi, most of the negative slopes for taxa have much higher value than the slope for all 160(2002): this paper compares old growth with 15 years-old stands, which were not considered 161 as "young regeneration phases" nor "clearfelling stands" in our protocol. We assume that our 162 selection protocol was restrictive enough regarding the number of studies finally included in 163 our MA; if we had been more restrictive in our inclusion criteria (i.e. excluding young stands), 164we would have rejected this paper. 166 Conclusions 167The paper we published does not aim at influencing European forest and conservation 168 policies in any way, but to provide decision-making tools based on scientific facts. Both 169 managed and unmanaged forests are needed to preserve European forest biodiversity, but 170 since there are many managed forests and very few old-growth ones, a special effort should 171 be allocated to create protected reserves, as suggested by Paillet et al. (2010).

Specialists in ancient trees are more affected by climate than generalists

“…Ancient trees are already in decline (Paillet et al. 2010; Lindenmayer et al. 2012), and drought can be a major stress contributing to oak tree aging and death (Vera 2000; Allen et al.…”

“…2010; Horak et al. 2014), and large, hollow trees are often disproportionately affected (Lindenmayer et al.…”

Understorey Vegetation Stability and Dynamics in Unmanaged Boreal Forests Along a Deposition Gradient in Sweden

“…Anthropogenic factors such as forest management practice (Paillet et al 2010) and atmospheric deposition of N and S (van Dobben and de Vries 2010; Lee 1998) can also influence species composition. Strongly decreasing emissions of S and moderately decreasing emissions of N have resulted in decreasing levels of N and S deposition throughout Europe (Benedictow et al 2009).…”

The value of plantation forests for plant, invertebrate and bird diversity and the potential for cross-taxon surrogacy

“…Here there are relatively few forest specialists compared with other parts of Europe, and forests are inhabited mainly by generalist species adapted to living in a range of habitat types (Mitchell 2006;Fuller et al 2007;Kelly 2008). Previous studies that used meta-analysis, which rely on data collected during separate studies, to investigate species richness across a number of taxonomic groups have found that species dependent on forests, such as bryophytes and saproxylic beetles are more negatively affected by forest management practices than more generalist species (Paillet et al 2010;Stephens and Wagner 2007;Paritsis and Aizen 2008).…”

“…The response of species diversity to commercial plantation forests varies across taxonomic groups, and much of the evidence for this variation comes from meta-analyses of independent studies which consider individual taxa separately (Paillet et al 2010;Paritsis and Aizen 2008). Very few studies have used empirical data to investigate the importance of plantation forests for more than one taxon simultaneously.…”