The impact of even‐aged and uneven‐aged forest management on regional biodiversity of multiple taxa in European beech forests

Abstract

1. For managed temperate forests, conservationists and policymakers favour fine-grained uneven-aged management over more traditional coarse-grained even-aged management, based on the assumption that within-stand habitat heterogeneity enhances biodiversity. There is, however, little empirical evidence to support this assumption. We investigated for the first time how differently grained forest management systems affect the biodiversity of multiple above- and below-ground taxa across spatial scales. 2. We sampled 15 taxa of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria within the largest contiguous beech forest landscape of Germany and classified them into functional groups. Selected forest stands have been managed for more than a century at different spatial grains. The even-aged (coarse-grained management) and uneven-aged (fine-grained) forests are comparable in spatial arrangement, climate and soil conditions. These were compared to forests of a nearby national park that have been unmanaged for at least 20 years. We used diversity accumulation curves to compare γ-diversity for Hill-numbers 0D (species richness), 1D (Shannon diversity) and 2D (Simpson diversity) between the management systems. Beta diversity was quantified as multiple-site dissimilarity. 3. Gamma diversity was higher in even-aged than in uneven-aged forests for at least one of the three Hillnumbers for six taxa (up to 77%), while eight showed no difference. Only bacteria showed the opposite pattern. Higher γ-diversity in even-aged forests was also found for forest specialists and saproxylic beetles. 4. Between-stand β-diversity was higher in even-aged than in uneven-aged forests for one third (all species) and half (forest specialists) of all taxa, driven by environmental heterogeneity between age-classes, while α-diversity showed no directional response across taxa or for forest specialists. 5. Synthesis and applications. Comparing even-aged and uneven-aged forest management in Central European beech forests, our results show that a mosaic of different age-classes is more important for regional biodiversity than high within-stand heterogeneity. We suggest reconsidering the current trend of replacing even-aged management in temperate forests. Instead, the variability of stages and stand structures should be increased to promote landscape scale biodiversity

Bryophyte and macrolichen diversity show contrasting elevation relationships and are negatively affected by disturbances in laurel forests of Madeira island

“…In contrast to previous studies reporting a positive effect of disturbances (bryophyte richness: Müller et al., ), no effect (bryophyte and lichen richness: Schall et al., ) or no consistent effect (negative effect on lichen and no effect on bryophyte richness: Paillet et al., ) on species numbers, disturbed plots harbored fewer species than undisturbed plots in this study. These contrasting findings might be on the one hand because disturbance effects vary among regions and ecosystems and on the other hand because effects vary among disturbance types.…”

Management breaks the natural productivity-biodiversity relationship in forests and grassland: an opinion

“…In this study we re-asses existing data by Bouriaud et al (2016), Buchmann et al (2017), Schall et al (2017) and Liang et al (2016) specifically in terms of biodiversity effects. In the past, the productivity/diversity relations were studied with a focus on the average change of productivity with plant species numbers.…”

“…In order to make sure that the tree species number reached in Figs. 3 and 4 is representative, we analyzed the data of Schall et al (2017) on 1 ha plots in the same region of Germany, but confined to deciduous forest (See Additional file 1: Figure S3). This study reached 8 tree species as maximum tree diversity.…”

“…Figure S2. Volume growth versus tree diversity on 1 ha plots of Fagus sylvatica in Thuringia, Germany (Schall et al 2017). Figure S3.…”

The Carbon Sequestration Potential of Degraded Agricultural Land in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia

“…This helps to organize the logistics but also establishing the proposed 'Normal-forest' system. This approach will also provide a patchy forest landscape of different development stages, which favors biodiversity [86].…”