Woody species richness and turnover in expanding Mediterranean forests: a story of landscape legacies influenced by climatic aridity

Contrasting genetic population structures in acorn weevils (Curculio spp.) in expanding forests: The effects of differences in resource‐tracking strategies

“…Although global forest loss and fragmentation threaten biodiversity conservation, the decline in world forest cover has begun to slow in recent decades (FAO, 2020) and, particularly in the northern hemisphere, in recent years forest cover has even increased (Kauppi et al, 2018). Although the species assemblies in these new forest patches have been explored in a number of studies (Cruz‐Alonso et al, 2021; Jacquemyn et al, 2003; Valdés‐Correcher et al, 2019; Verheyen et al, 2003), we are still largely unaware of how this assembly process interacts with food‐tracking strategies and the fecundity of forest insects, and how it shapes their population dynamics and viability. It has been shown that the species composition of new forest patches depends on their degree of isolation and age (Fuller et al, 2018; Jeffries et al, 2006; Maldonado‐López et al, 2015).…”

Recent tree diversity increase in NE Iberian forests following intense management release: A task for animal‐dispersed and drought‐tolerant species

“…Considering that long and recently established forests in the area currently exhibit similar tree species richness and diversity (Basnou et al, 2016;Cruz-Alonso et al, 2021), the reported effect of landuse age on increasing forest diversity showcases a process of tree species recovery in long-existing forests where intensive past management and other disturbances had eroded their original tree diversity (Espelta et al, 2020). In addition to forest land-use age, our results revealed a self-evident negative effect of recent forest management for the increase in tree species diversity.…”

“…As recruitment success in tree species is shaped by both their dispersal ability and their response to environmental filters (Cruz‐Alonso et al., 2021), we performed a cluster classification according to seed dispersal type: animal‐dispersed (dispersed by birds and mammals) versus other dispersal methods, and to shade and drought tolerance. This classification was restricted to the most representative species for which data were available: we excluded tree species recorded in less than five plots (2‰ of the total number of plots) for both inventories, resulting in a total number of 43 species included for analysis (Tables S1 and S2).…”

“…See Figure 4 for cluster codes. evident changes at the landscape level (Crockett et al, 2022;Cruz-Alonso et al, 2021;Espelta et al, 2020). In addition, the fact that the moderate diversity increase was mostly driven by changes in species richness, rather than by changes in evenness (i.e.…”

“…Thus, numerous studies have emphasized the benefits of promoting tree species diversity by means of either passive natural regeneration or by active tree planting (Haberstroh & Werner, 2022; Messier et al., 2022). Yet, it has also been warned that increasing tree species diversity may require long time periods (Bauhus et al., 2017) and may be constrained by a myriad of factors influencing propagule availability and recruitment, such as changes in the climatic conditions (García‐Valdés et al., 2015), land‐use legacies (Cruz‐Alonso et al., 2021), past and recent management (Chaudhary et al., 2016), forest protection (Lecina‐Diaz et al., 2019), and forest structure and cover (Crowther et al., 2015).…”