Biodiversity response to forest structure and management: Comparing species richness, conservation relevant species and functional diversity as metrics in forest conservation: comparing species richness, conservation relevant species and functional diversity as metrics in forest conservation

TY - JOUR

T1 - Biodiversity response to forest structure and management: Comparing species richness, conservation relevant species and functional diversity as metrics in forest conservation

T2 - comparing species richness, conservation relevant species and functional diversity as metrics in forest conservation

AU - Lelli, Chiara

AU - Bruun, Hans Henrik

AU - Chiarucci, Alessandro

AU - Donati, Davide

AU - Frascaroli, Fabrizio

AU - Fritz, Örjan

AU - Goldberg, Irina

AU - Nascimbene, Juri

AU - Tøttrup, Anders P.

AU - Rahbek, Carsten

AU - Heilmann-Clausen, Jacob

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - Aim: We investigated the consistency between richness and trait-based diversity metrics in capturing the effects of management-related habitat factors on biodiversity. The choice of biodiversity metrics can substantially affect the evaluation of conservation tools. However, the relative sensitivity of different metrics is not well investigated, especially in a multi-taxon framework. Location: European beech forests in Denmark. Methods: We studied 20 beech stands comprising four management types (from intensively managed to long unmanaged stands). We analyzed how management-related environmental variables were reflected in the measure of: (i) species richness, (ii) number of conservation-relevant species (red-listed species and old-growth forest indicators) and (iii) functional diversity targeting five organism groups with different habitat requirements, i.e. vascular plants, epiphytic lichens and bryophytes, saproxylic fungi and breeding birds. Results: Plain species richness at stand level was generally misleading, as it did not capture changes in the number of conservation relevant species with changes in management-related environmental variables. The interpretation of functional responses was most informative for the better known vascular plants, while responses were more fragmented for the other organism groups. Overall, however, functional responses were consistent with a loss of specialization and progressive simplification of species assemblages from long-unmanaged to intensively managed stands. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the occurrence of conservation-relevant species is a sound and relevant metric for planning and evaluating conservation actions, especially for less studied organism groups (e.g., saproxylic fungi and epiphytes). The functional approach is promising, but presupposes the availability of databases of relevant traits.

AB - Aim: We investigated the consistency between richness and trait-based diversity metrics in capturing the effects of management-related habitat factors on biodiversity. The choice of biodiversity metrics can substantially affect the evaluation of conservation tools. However, the relative sensitivity of different metrics is not well investigated, especially in a multi-taxon framework. Location: European beech forests in Denmark. Methods: We studied 20 beech stands comprising four management types (from intensively managed to long unmanaged stands). We analyzed how management-related environmental variables were reflected in the measure of: (i) species richness, (ii) number of conservation-relevant species (red-listed species and old-growth forest indicators) and (iii) functional diversity targeting five organism groups with different habitat requirements, i.e. vascular plants, epiphytic lichens and bryophytes, saproxylic fungi and breeding birds. Results: Plain species richness at stand level was generally misleading, as it did not capture changes in the number of conservation relevant species with changes in management-related environmental variables. The interpretation of functional responses was most informative for the better known vascular plants, while responses were more fragmented for the other organism groups. Overall, however, functional responses were consistent with a loss of specialization and progressive simplification of species assemblages from long-unmanaged to intensively managed stands. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the occurrence of conservation-relevant species is a sound and relevant metric for planning and evaluating conservation actions, especially for less studied organism groups (e.g., saproxylic fungi and epiphytes). The functional approach is promising, but presupposes the availability of databases of relevant traits.

KW - Birds

KW - Community-weighted mean

KW - Epiphytes

KW - European beech forests

KW - GLMM

KW - Habitat structure

KW - Multi-taxon biodiversity

KW - Rao's quadratic diversity

KW - Vascular plants

KW - Wood-inhabiting fungi

KW - biodiversity conservation

U2 - 10.1016/j.foreco.2018.09.057

DO - 10.1016/j.foreco.2018.09.057

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85054446648

SN - 0378-1127

VL - 432

SP - 707

EP - 717

JO - Forest Ecology and Management

JF - Forest Ecology and Management

ER -