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).

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Aim Primary forests have high conservation value but are rare in Europe due to historic land use. Yet many primary forest patches remain unmapped, and it is unclear to what extent they are effectively protected. Our aim was to (1) compile the most comprehensive European‐scale map of currently known primary forests, (2) analyse the spatial determinants characterizing their location and (3) locate areas where so far unmapped primary forests likely occur. Location Europe. Methods We aggregated data from a literature review, online questionnaires and 32 datasets of primary forests. We used boosted regression trees to explore which biophysical, socio‐economic and forest‐related variables explain the current distribution of primary forests. Finally, we predicted and mapped the relative likelihood of primary forest occurrence at a 1‐km resolution across Europe. Results Data on primary forests were frequently incomplete or inconsistent among countries. Known primary forests covered 1.4 Mha in 32 countries (0.7% of Europe’s forest area). Most of these forests were protected (89%), but only 46% of them strictly. Primary forests mostly occurred in mountain and boreal areas and were unevenly distributed across countries, biogeographical regions and forest types. Unmapped primary forests likely occur in the least accessible and populated areas, where forests cover a greater share of land, but wood demand historically has been low. Main conclusions Despite their outstanding conservation value, primary forests are rare and their current distribution is the result of centuries of land use and forest management. The conservation outlook for primary forests is uncertain as many are not strictly protected and most are small and fragmented, making them prone to extinction debt and human disturbance. Predicting where unmapped primary forests likely occur could guide conservation efforts, especially in Eastern Europe where large areas of primary forest still exist but are being lost at an alarming pace.

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The effect of light on different understory plant groups (herbs, ground floor bryophytes, trunkdwelling bryophytes and seedlings) was studied in a deciduous-coniferous mixed woodland in Western Hungary. The correlation of cover and species richness in each group and the cover of individual species to relative diffuse light were analyzed at different spatial scales. The study was carried out in 34 forest stands with different tree species composition. The importance of light in determining species composition was investigated by redundancy analysis. Species within each plant group were classified based on their light response. Light was positively correlated with species richness of herbs, cover of ground floor and trunkdwelling bryophytes, and species richness and cover of seedlings. In redundancy analysis, the variance explained by light was 13.0% for herbs, 15.0% for bryophytes and 8.6% for seedlings. Within the group of herbs, species preferring open conditions and light-flexible (gap) species were separated on the basis of the spatial scale of the analysis, while shade-tolerant species were not correlated positively with light. Among bryophytes mainly terricolous, opportunistic and mineral soil-inhabiting species showed significant positive correlations with light, while epiphytic and epixylic species did not respond to light. Seedlings of Quercus petraea and Pinus sylvestris were positively related to light, while most other seedling species were shade-tolerant. In case of vascular plants, the species' correlations with light were in agreement with their light indicator values; however, they were independent in the case of bryophytes. This study proved that the extent and spatial pattern of light influenced strongly the understory plant groups. Species within each group respond to light conditions differently, concerning the strength, direction and spatial scale of the relationships.

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Controlling herbivore insects by insectivorous birds is a major ecosystem service, nevertheless little is known about how local habitat features and forest management influence the efficiency of this service and about how the pest control service birds provide can be maintained and improved. We conducted an experiment in temperate oak forests in the Mátra Mountains, northern Hungary to measure bird predation rate of artificial caterpillars resembling winter moth (Operophtera brumata L.) larvae, to evaluate the relationships among insectivorous bird communities, caterpillar populations and leaf damage caused by caterpillars and to assess the effect of forest heterogeneity on these processes. We found, that structurally heterogeneous forests maintained a significantly higher abundance of insectivorous birds.Especially the tree size heterogeneity increased bird abundance. The rate of bird predation was positively related to the abundance of insectivorous birds as well as to caterpillar abundance, which indicates that birds were able to respond to caterpillar density. We were not able to demonstrate a direct negative effect of bird predation on caterpillar abundance and a positive effect of caterpillar abundance on leaf damage. Structurally heterogeneous forests, however, suffered from less leaf damage than did homogeneous forests, which result may indicates that the higher activity of insectivorous birds in heterogeneous stands resulted in 3 lower activity of insect herbivores. Thus, we concluded that forest management can contribute to the mitigation of insect damages by maintaining the suitability of forest stands to the insectivorous bird communities through the maintenance of high stand heterogeneity and the presence of some key elements (e.g. retention tree groups, tree diversity, shrub layer).

This manuscript is contextually identical with the following published paper: Kovács, B.,