Words apart:Standardizing forestry terms and definitions across European biodiversity studies

Forest biodiversity studies conducted across Europe use a multitude of forestry terms,often inconsistently.This hinders the comparability across studies and makes the assessment of the impacts of forest management on biodiversity highly context-dependent.Recent attempts to standardize forestry and stand description terminology mostly used a top-down approach that did not account for the perspectives and approaches of forest biodiversity experts.This work aims to establish common standards for silvicultural and vegetation definitions,creating a shared conceptual framework for a consistent study on the effects of forest management on biodiversity.We have identified both strengths and weaknesses of the silvicultural and vegetation information provided in forest biodiversity studies.While quantitative data on forest biomass and dominant tree species are frequently included,information on silvicultural activities and vegetation composition is often lacking,shallow,or based on broad and heterogeneous classifications.We discuss the existing classifications and their use in European forest biodiversity studies through a novel bottom-up and top-driven review process,and ultimately propose a common framework.This will enhance the comparability of forest biodiversity studies in Europe,and puts the basis for effective implementation and monitoring of sustainable forest management policies.The standards here proposed are potentially adaptable and applicable to other geographical areas and could be extended to other forest interventions.

National Forest Inventories capture the multifunctionality of managed forests in Germany

Background:Forests perform various important ecosystem functions that contribute to ecosystem services.In many parts of the world,forest management has shifted from a focus on timber production to multi-purpose forestry,combining timber production with the supply of other forest ecosystem services.However,it is unclear which forest types provide which ecosystem services and to what extent forests primarily managed for timber already supply multiple ecosystem services.Based on a comprehensive dataset collected across 150 forest plots in three regions differing in management intensity and species composition,we develop models to predict the potential supply of 13 ecosystem services.We use those models to assess the level of multifunctionality of managed forests at the national level using national forest inventory data.Results:Looking at the potential supply of ecosystem services,we found trade-offs(e.g.between both bark beetle control or dung decomposition and both productivity or soil carbon stocks)as well as synergies(e.g.for temperature regulation,carbon storage and culturally interesting plants)across the 53 most dominant forest types in Germany.No single forest type provided all ecosystem services equally.Some ecosystem services showed comparable levels across forest types(e.g.decomposition or richness of saprotrophs),while others varied strongly,depending on forest structural attributes(e.g.phosphorous availability or cover of edible plants)or tree species composition(e.g.potential nitrification activity).Variability in potential supply of ecosystem services was only to a lesser extent driven by environmental conditions.However,the geographic variation in ecosystem function supply across Germany was closely linked with the distribution of main tree species.Conclusions:Our results show that forest multifunctionality is limited to subsets of ecosystem services.The importance of tree species composition highlights that a lack of multifunctionality at the stand level can be compensated by managing forests at the landscape level,when stands of complementary forest types are combined.These results imply that multi-purpose forestry should be based on a variety of forest types requiring coordinated planning across larger spatial scales.

Positive association between forest management, environmental change, and forest bird abundance

Background: The global decrease in wildlife populations, especially birds, is mainly due to land use change and increasing intensity of land use(Parmesan and Yohe 2003). However, impacts of management tools to mitigate biodiversity loss at regional and global scales are less apparent in forest regions that have a constant forest area,and which did not suffer from habitat degradation, and where forests are sustainably managed, such as in Central Europe or the northeastern USA. A biodiversity assessment for Germany suggested, for example, that bird populations were constant(Bundesamt für Naturschutz 2015).Results: This study shows that changes in the environment and in forest management over the past 45 years have had a significant, positive effect on the abundance of non-migratory forest bird species in Central Europe. Economy(timber prices and GDP), forest management(timber harvest and mixed forest area), and environmental factors(atmospheric CO_2 concentration and nitrogen deposition) were investigated together with changes in abundances of migratory and non-migratory forest birds using partial least squares path modeling. Climate change, resulting in longer seasons and milder winters, and forest management, promoting tree diversity, were significantly positively related to the abundance of non-migratory forest birds and explained 92% of the variation in their abundance in Europe. Regionally-migrating forest birds had stable populations with large variation, while birds migrating across continents declined in recent decades, suggesting significant, contrasting changes in bird populations in Europe. In northeastern North America we also found evidence that non-migratory forests have experienced long-term increases in abundance, and this increase was related to management. The increase of populations of nonmigratory forest birds in Europe and North America is associated with an increase in structural diversity and disturbances at the landscape level.Conclusions: Our results suggest that reports about bird decline in forests should separate between migratory and non-migratory bird species. Efforts to mitigate the general decline in bird abundance should focus on land-use systems other than forests and support sustainable forest management independent of economic conditions.

Exotic tree seedlings are much more competitive than natives but show underyielding when growing together

Aims Invasive species continue to be a worldwide threat to ecosystems mainly as a cause for biodiversity loss.Forest ecosystems,for example,are subject to a change in species composition due to the invasion of exotic species.specifying the attributes that cause the strong competitiveness of several exotic species may improve the ability to understand and effectively manage plant invasions in the future.In this study the following hypotheses were tested:(1)biomass production of below-and aboveground plant compo-nents of the exotic tree species is higher than that of the natives,resulting in a higher competitiveness of the exotics;(2)the exclu-sion of root competition has a positive effect on the biomass pro-duction of the inferior native species;and(3)mixtures of native and exotic species yield a higher biomass production than the respective monocultures.Methods a pot experiment,containing about 2000 tree seedlings,was established.We investigated the biomass productivity and growth reactions of two native(Quercus robur l.,Carpinus betulus l.)and two exotic tree species(Prunus serotina Ehrh.,Robinia pseudoacacia l.)in different intra-and interspecific,competitive situations with and without the influence of root competition.Important Findingsthe biomass production of both exotic species was significantly higher and led to a strong competitive advantage,resulting in a biomass decrease of the less competitive native species.the high belowground biomass of both exotic species had a negative effect on the biomass production.the competitive pressure of exotic tree seedlings on the native ones was largely driven by root competition.Furthermore,mixtures of native and exotic tree species had a higher productivity than their growth in monocultures would have predicted.Competition was lower for exotic species in mixtures with the less productive native species compared to the competition in monocultures or in mixture with the other highly productive exotic species.accordingly,both highly competitive exotic species produced less biomass in mixture with each other compared to monocultures.Despite the significantly higher biomass of P.serotina in all mixtures and in monoculture,R.pseudoacacia seemed to be the dominating species.Due to its strong root competition,R.pseudoacacia significantly reduced the biomass production of P.serotina.