Impacts of salvage-logging on the status of deadwood after windthrow in Swiss forests

Priewasser, Kathrin; Brang, Peter; Bachofen, Hansheinrich; Bugmann, Harald; Wohlgemuth, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s10342-012-0670-1

Cited by 47 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The amount and diversity of dead-wood resources of salvage-logged areas does not significantly differ between salvage-logged and non-salvage-logged windthrows [37]. But, in contrast to natural windthrows, the remaining dead wood on salvage-logged windthrows in our study area is mostly scattered on the ground surface (e.g.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 53%

“…1). Owing to the stronger attraction of wood-inhabiting fungi, salvage-logged sites tend to harbour more advanced decomposition stages than non-salvage-logged sites [37], [71], [72]. This shift within decay stages of available dead-wood resources was well reflected by our finding of a mean decay niche with significantly higher mean decay niche values on salvage-logged plots in 2009 and 2010.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

“…Our analysis based on functional traits revealed an unexpected response of saproxylic beetles to salvage logging and suggested that microclimate conditions are more crucial for the use of dead-wood resources by saproxylic beetles than dead-wood diameter or diversity [32], [37]. The direct relationship between species traits and logging-affected structures enables us to derive new guidelines for conservationists and managers to optimize salvage logging with a consideration of biodiversity conservation: downed tree tops unaffected by salvage logging operations and complete single windthrown trees should be preserved and allowed to naturally decay on salvage-logged areas to help sustain heliophilous species, colonizers of early decay stages and species that prefer wood of small diameter.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

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New Insights into the Consequences of Post-Windthrow Salvage Logging Revealed by Functional Structure of Saproxylic Beetles Assemblages

et al. 2014

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Windstorms, bark beetle outbreaks and fires are important natural disturbances in coniferous forests worldwide. Wind-thrown trees promote biodiversity and restoration within production forests, but also cause large economic losses due to bark beetle infestation and accelerated fungal decomposition. Such damaged trees are often removed by salvage logging, which leads to decreased biodiversity and thus increasingly evokes discussions between economists and ecologists about appropriate strategies. To reveal the reasons behind species loss after salvage logging, we used a functional approach based on four habitat-related ecological traits and focused on saproxylic beetles. We predicted that salvage logging would decrease functional diversity (measured as effect sizes of mean pairwise distances using null models) as well as mean values of beetle body size, wood diameter niche and canopy cover niche, but would increase decay stage niche. As expected, salvage logging caused a decrease in species richness, but led to an increase in functional diversity by altering the species composition from habitat-filtered assemblages toward random assemblages. Even though salvage logging removes tree trunks, the most negative effects were found for small and heliophilous species and for species specialized on wood of small diameter. Our results suggested that salvage logging disrupts the natural assembly process on windthrown trees and that negative ecological impacts are caused more by microclimate alteration of the dead-wood objects than by loss of resource amount. These insights underline the power of functional approaches to detect ecosystem responses to anthropogenic disturbance and form a basis for management decisions in conservation. To mitigate negative effects on saproxylic beetle diversity after windthrows, we recommend preserving single windthrown trees or at least their tops with exposed branches during salvage logging. Such an extension of the green-tree retention approach to windthrown trees will preserve natural succession and associated communities of disturbed spruce forests.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 53%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

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New Insights into the Consequences of Post-Windthrow Salvage Logging Revealed by Functional Structure of Saproxylic Beetles Assemblages

et al. 2014

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“…Naturally disturbed forests are characterized by large volumes of dead wood with high structural diversity (Swanson et al., ). In contrast, salvage logging typically reduces the amount and heterogeneity of dead wood by removing tree trunks (Keyser, Smith, & Shepperd, ; Priewasser, Brang, Bachofen, Bugmann, & Wohlgemuth, ). Not surprisingly, salvage logging reduced the numbers of species of saproxylic groups (Figures and ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of salvage logging on biodiversity: A meta‐analysis

Thorn

Bässler

Brandl

et al. 2017

Journal of Applied Ecology

294

179

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Logging to "salvage" economic returns from forests affected by natural disturbances has become increasingly prevalent globally. Despite potential negative effects on biodiversity, salvage logging is often conducted, even in areas otherwise excluded from logging and reserved for nature conservation, inter alia because strategic priorities for post-disturbance management are widely lacking.A review of the existing literature revealed that most studies investigating the effects of salvage logging on biodiversity have been conducted less than 5 years following natural disturbances, and focused on non-saproxylic organisms.A meta-analysis across 24 species groups revealed that salvage logging significantly decreases numbers of species of eight taxonomic groups. Richness of dead wood dependent taxa (i.e. saproxylic organisms) decreased more strongly than richness of non-saproxylic taxa. In contrast, taxonomic groups typically associated with open habitats increased in the number of species after salvage logging.By analysing 134 original species abundance matrices, we demonstrate that salvage logging significantly alters community composition in 7 of 17 species groups, particularly affecting saproxylic assemblages. Our results suggest that salvage logging is not consistent with the management objectives of protected areas. Substantial changes, such as the retention of dead wood in naturally disturbed forests, are needed to support biodiversity. Future research should investigate the amount and spatio-temporal distribution of retained dead wood needed to maintain all components of biodiversity.

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“…Moreover, even if we assume or predict negative effects of warming on the life cycle of some mountain species (Bässler et al ), we have to keep in mind a second important indirect effect of global warming on saproxylic species. The increase of climate‐induced disturbance events, such as windstorms and bark beetle attacks, currently increase also the amount of dead wood in most mountainous regions of Europe, also in salvage‐logged forests (Seidl et al , Priewasser et al ). Effectively, we observe an increase in populations of formerly rare montane saproxylic species owing to an increase of dead wood, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing temperature may compensate for lower amounts of dead wood in driving richness of saproxylic beetles

et al. 2014

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Global warming and land‐use change are expected to be additive threats to global diversity, to which insects contribute the highest proportion. Insects are strongly influenced by temperature but also require specific habitat resources, and thus interaction between the two factors is likely. We selected saproxylic beetles as a model group because their life cycle depends on dead wood, which is highly threatened by land use. We tested the extent to which higher temperatures compensate for the negative effects of low amounts of dead wood on saproxylic beetle species richness (Temperature–Dead wood compensation hypothesis) on both a macroclimate and a topoclimate scale (north‐ and south‐facing slopes). We analyzed 1404 flight‐interception trap catches across Europe to test for interaction effects of temperature and dead‐wood amount on species richness. To experimentally test our findings from the activity trap data, we additionally reared beetles from 80 bundles of dead wood initially exposed at high and low elevations. At the topoclimate scale, we analyzed trap catches and reared beetles from dead wood exposed in 20 forest stands on south‐facing and north‐facing slopes in one region. On the macroscale, both temperature and dead‐wood amount positively affected total and threatened species richness independently, but their interaction was significantly negative, indicating compensation. On both scales and irrespective of the method, species richness decreased with temperature decline. Our observation that increasing temperature compensates for lower amounts of dead wood has two important implications. First, managers of production forests should adapt their dead‐wood enrichment strategy to site‐specific temperature conditions. Second, an increase in temperature will compensate at least partially for poor habitat conditions in production forests. Such a perspective contrasts the general assumption of reinforcing impacts of global warming and habitat loss on biodiversity, but it is corroborated by recent range expansions of threatened beetle species.

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Impacts of salvage-logging on the status of deadwood after windthrow in Swiss forests

Cited by 47 publications

References 38 publications

New Insights into the Consequences of Post-Windthrow Salvage Logging Revealed by Functional Structure of Saproxylic Beetles Assemblages

New Insights into the Consequences of Post-Windthrow Salvage Logging Revealed by Functional Structure of Saproxylic Beetles Assemblages

Impacts of salvage logging on biodiversity: A meta‐analysis

Increasing temperature may compensate for lower amounts of dead wood in driving richness of saproxylic beetles

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