One taxon does not fit all: Herb-layer diversity and stand structural complexity are weak predictors of biodiversity in Fagus sylvatica forests

Sabatini, Francesco; Burrascano, Sabina; Azzella, Mattia M.; Barbati, Anna; Paulis, Silvia De; Santo, Daniele Di; Facioni, L.; Giuliarelli, Diego; Lombardi, Fabio; Maggi, Oriana; Mattioli, Walter; Parisi, Francesco; Persiani, Anna Maria; Ravera, Sonia; Blasi, C.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.04.012

Cited by 50 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Sampling of forest structure is described in detail in Burrascano, Sabatini, and Blasi, (), Janssen et al (), Márialigeti, Tinya, Bidló, and Ódor (), Paillet et al, (), Sabatini et al, (), and Sitzia et al, (), and synthesized in Supporting Information Table S3. In short, we sampled living trees in plots ranging from 491 to 2,827 m 2 in area using a diameter at breast height (DBH) threshold of 10 cm.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is understandable, given the inherent costs of collecting field-based data for multiple taxonomic groups (Bustamante et al, 2016). Focusing on trees or vertebrates, however, assumes that these taxa are good surrogates for overall forest biodiversity (Lecina-Diaz et al, 2018), while recent evidence suggests that this is not generally true (Larrieu et al, 2018;Sabatini et al, 2016;Zilliox & Gosselin, 2014). Moreover, even within the same taxonomic group, different species may relate very differently to carbon stocks (Edwards et al, 2014;Lindenmayer, Fischer, & Cunningham, 2005;Villard & Jonsson, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trade‐offs between carbon stocks and biodiversity in European temperate forests

Sabatini

Andrade

Paillet³

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Policies to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss often assume that protecting carbon‐rich forests provides co‐benefits in terms of biodiversity, due to the spatial congruence of carbon stocks and biodiversity at biogeographic scales. However, it remains unclear whether this holds at the scales relevant for management, and particularly large knowledge gaps exist for temperate forests and for taxa other than trees. We built a comprehensive dataset of Central European temperate forest structure and multi‐taxonomic diversity (beetles, birds, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, and plants) across 352 plots. We used Boosted Regression Trees (BRTs) to assess the relationship between above‐ground live carbon stocks and (a) taxon‐specific richness, (b) a unified multidiversity index. We used Threshold Indicator Taxa ANalysis to explore individual species’ responses to changing above‐ground carbon stocks and to detect change‐points in species composition along the carbon‐stock gradient. Our results reveal an overall weak and highly variable relationship between richness and carbon stock at the stand scale, both for individual taxonomic groups and for multidiversity. Similarly, the proportion of win‐win and trade‐off species (i.e., species favored or disadvantaged by increasing carbon stock, respectively) varied substantially across taxa. Win‐win species gradually replaced trade‐off species with increasing carbon, without clear thresholds along the above‐ground carbon gradient, suggesting that community‐level surrogates (e.g., richness) might fail to detect critical changes in biodiversity. Collectively, our analyses highlight that leveraging co‐benefits between carbon and biodiversity in temperate forest may require stand‐scale management that prioritizes either biodiversity or carbon in order to maximize co‐benefits at broader scales. Importantly, this contrasts with tropical forests, where climate and biodiversity objectives can be integrated at the stand scale, thus highlighting the need for context‐specificity when managing for multiple objectives. Accounting for critical change‐points of target taxa can help to deal with this specificity, by defining a safe operating space to manipulate carbon while avoiding biodiversity losses.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade‐offs between carbon stocks and biodiversity in European temperate forests

Sabatini

Andrade

Paillet³

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

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“…By contrast, in managed forests tree stumps are the only type of deadwood that is typically available (Nordén et al 2004, Seidling et al 2014. The amount and diversity of deadwood in abandoned forests are therefore likely to enhance the establishment of less common communities, which are not likely to be found in forests managed solely for timber production (Mason & Zapponi 2015, Sabatini et al 2016. A consistent pattern was observed in this study between lichens and bark beetles, whereas longhorn beetles showed a different pattern, in which communities similar in composition were progressively enriched by a species accumulation process, coupled with the progressive accumulation of different types of deadwood over the time since abandonment (Sitzia et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting multi-taxa diversity patterns between abandoned and non-intensively managed forests in the southern Dolomites

Sitzia¹,

Campagnaro²,

Dainese³

et al. 2017

iForest

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The abandonment of silvicultural activities can lead to changes in species richness and composition of biological communities, when compared to those found in managed forests. The aim of this study was to compare the multi-taxonomical diversity of two mature silver fir-beech-spruce forests in the southern Dolomites (Italy), corresponding to the European Union habitat type 9130. The two sites share similar ecological and structural characteristics, but differ in their recent management histories. In the last 50 years, one site underwent non-intensive management, while the other was left unmanaged and was included in a forest reserve. The species richness and composition of eight taxa were surveyed in the two sites between 2009 and 2011. The difference in mean species richness between the two forest management types was tested through permutation tests, while differences in species composition were tested by principal coordinates analysis and the permutational multivariate analysis of variance. Mean species richness of soil macrofungi, deadwood lichens, bark beetles, and longhorn beetles were significantly higher in the abandoned than in the non-intensively managed forests. Deadwood fungi and epiphytic lichens did not differ in mean species richness between the two study sites, while mean species richness of ground beetles and birds were higher in the non-intensively managed than in the abandoned forest. Significant differences in species composition between the two sites were found for all the taxa, except for longhorn beetles. These results indicate that improving forest landscape heterogeneity through the creation of a mosaic of abandoned and extensively managed forests should better fulfill the requirements of ecologically different taxa.

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“…In the present study, we investigated only one component of the forest biota: understory vegetation. Obviously, this single assemblage cannot be considered as an indicator of the entire forest biodiversity (Sabatini et al 2016). Every organism group responds differently to the treatments, as they react to various effects of the cuttings.…”

Section: Relevance and Limitations Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%