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The Bohemian Forest represents the most extensive continuous forest landscape in central Europe. Two neighbouring national parks (NP), the Bavarian Forest NP in Germany and the Šumava NP in Czechia, protecting the most valuable part of this area have been recognized as an important site for monitoring of effect of climate change on central European biodiversity and ecosystem structure. For long time, a hydrological monitoring program in the Große Ohe headwater catchment and complex monitoring of glacial lakes recently recovering from acidification were flagships of long-term transboundary research in the Bohemian Forest. Recently published results of biodiversity research in the Bavarian Forest NP and experiences with monitoring of mires in the Šumava NP supported a necessity of multidisciplinary and transboundary research. To improve the cooperation of both national parks, optimize methodologies, and coordinate research activities in the region a new Interreg project No. 26 "Silva Gabreta Monitoring - Implementation of transboundary monitoring of biodiversity and water regime" was jointly prepared. The aims and monitoring methodologies of three main project activities are presented in this paper: (i) monitoring of forest biodiversity, (ii) monitoring of mires, and (iii) monitoring of aquatic ecosystems. In addition, we briefly present several supplementary project activities and tasks, such as modelling of mesoclimatic conditions, monitoring of effect of deicing salt, project conference and common database. As well as sampling design, methods and strategies, and brief overview of the preliminary results are mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest composition is a faithful indicator of the stressors and disturbances that influence forest ecosystems, and it should be accounted for in Sustainable Forest Management policies. Indeed, the classification of forest ecosystems in forest types is considered as a key tool to improve the assessment and monitoring of forest biological diversity, and for the definition of management guidelines. Accordingly, the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe has recognized the need of developing a pan-European forest classification in forest types, and has identified indicators of Sustainable Forest Management that should be applied by forest types. The classification of vegetation has always been among the main aims of the plant sociology. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of plant species composition, performed through the plant sociological approach, condenses compositional and structural information within a hierarchical system, and expresses all historical, sociological and habitat factors that influence the actual and potential vegetation. In a modern perspective the integration of plant sociology and ecological analysis represents a key to a hierarchical land classification and to the understanding of vegetation dynamics; furthermore the long history of plant sociology determined the availability of large datasets of vegetation data throughout Europe. Starting from these considerations, in this paper we briefly describe how plant sociology could represent a tool for the assessment of the indicators of SFM that should be applied by forest types, giving insights on how this discipline could contribute to the assessment of each of these indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While forest productivity and biodiversity are expected to be correlated, prioritizing either forest productivity or biodiversity can result in different management. Spatial quantification of the congruence between areas suitable for either one can inform planning. Here we quantify the relationship between net primary productivity of European forests and biodiversity of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and butterflies both separately and in combination, and map their spatial congruence. We used richness maps obtained by stacking species distribution models for these animal species, and average net primary production from 2000 to 2012 using moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. We tested how biodiversity and primary productivity are correlated and quantified the spatial congruence of these two sources. We show the areas where high or low productivity co-occur with high or low biodiversity using a quantile-based overlay analysis. Productivity was positively correlated to overall biodiversity and mammal, herptile and butterfly biodiversity, but biodiversity of birds showed a weak negative correlation. There were no significant differences in the strength of relationship across species groups, while herptiles had stronger relationships with productivity compared to other groups. Overlap analysis revealed significant spatial overlap between productivity and biodiversity in all species groups, except for birds. High value areas for both productivity and biodiversity in all species groups, except birds, co-occurred in the Mediterranean and temperate regions. The areas with high biodiversity of birds are mainly found in the boreal areas of Europe, while for all other species groups these areas are mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkan ranges. Based on the presented maps, areas where regulating wood production activities to conserve species can be identified. But the maps also help to identify areas where either biodiversity or productivity is high and focusing on just one aspect is more straightforward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is a growing need for Decision Support Systems in forestry that focus on the understorey. • This paper presents a first prototype of such an understorey Decision Support System. • We developed General Additive Models to predict understorey responses to global change. • Climate warming will shift understorey composition towards more woody species and forest generalists. • Keeping the canopy close can help mitigating this shift by increasing the proportion of forest specialists. • Understorey responses to global change were found to be context-dependent. The temperate forest understorey is rich in terms of vascular plant diversity and plays a vital functional role. Given the sensitivity of this forest layer to forest management and global environmental change and the limited knowledge on its long-term dynamics, there is a need for decision support systems that can guide temperate forest managers to optimize their management in terms of understorey outcomes. In this study, using understorey resurvey data collected from across temperate Europe, we developed Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to predict four understorey properties based on forest management and environmental change data, and implemented this model in a web-based tool as a prototype understorey Decision Support System (DSS). Using seventy-two combined climate change, nitrogen(N) deposition and forest management scenarios, applied to two case study regions in Europe, we predicted temperate forest understorey biodiversity dynamics between 2020 and 2050. A sensitivity analysis subsequently allowed to quantify the relative importance of canopy opening, N deposition and climate change on understorey dynamics. Our study showed that, regardless of regions, understorey richness and the proportion of forest specialists generally decreased among most scenarios, but the proportion of woody species and the understorey vegetation total cover increased. Climate warming, N deposition, and increases in canopy openness all influenced understorey dynamics. Climate warming will shift composition towards a selection of forest generalists and woody species, but a less open canopy could mitigate this shift by increasing the proportion of forest specialists. The case studies also showed that these responses can be context-dependent, especially in terms of responses to N deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much is known about the ecology and functional importance of canopy arthropods in temperate forests, few studies have tried to assess the overall diversity and investigate the composition and dynamics of tree-specific communities. This has impeded a deeper understanding of the functioning of forests, and of how to maintain system services. Here, we present the first comprehensive data of whole arthropod communities, collected by insecticidal knockdown (fogging) from 1159 trees in 18 study areas in Central Europe during the last 25 years. The data includes 3,253,591 arthropods from 32 taxa (order, suborder, family) collected on 24 tree species from 18 genera. Fogging collects free-living, ectophytic arthropods in approximately the same number as they occur in the trees. To our knowledge, these are the most comprehensive data available today on the taxonomic composition of arboreal fauna. Assigning all arthropods to their feeding guild provided a proxy of their functional importance. The data showed that the canopy communities were regularly structured, with a clear dominance hierarchy comprised of eight 'major taxa' that represented 87% of all arthropods. Despite significant differences in the proportions of taxa on deciduous and coniferous trees, the composition of the guilds was very similar. The individual tree genera, on the other hand, showed significant differences in guild composition, especially when different study areas and years were compared, whereas tree-specific traits, such as tree height, girth in breast height or leaf cover, explained little of the overall variance. On the ordinal level, guild composition also differed significantly between managed and primary forests, with a simultaneous low within-group variability, indicating that management is a key factor determining the distribution of biodiversity and guild composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional conservation policies in Europe notably rely on the passive restoration of natural forest dynamics by setting aside forest areas to preserve forest biodiversity. However, since forest reserves cover only a small proportion of the territory, conservation policies also require complementary conservation efforts in managed forests in order to achieve the biodiversity targets set up in the Convention on Biological Diversity. Conservation measures also raise the question of large herbivore management in and around set‐asides, particularly regarding their impact on understory vegetation. Although many studies have separately analyzed the effects of forest management, management abandonment, and ungulate pressure on forest biodiversity, their joint effects have rarely been studied in a correlative framework. We studied 212 plots located in 15 strict forest reserves paired with adjacent managed forests in European France. We applied structural equation models to test the effects of management abandonment, stand structure, and ungulate pressure on the abundance, species richness, and diversity of herbaceous vascular plants and terricolous bryophytes. We showed that stand structure indices and plot‐level browsing pressure had direct and opposite effects on herbaceous vascular plant species diversity; these effects were linked with the light tolerance of the different species groups. Increasing canopy cover had an overall negative effect on herbaceous vascular plant abundance and species diversity. The effect was two to three times greater in magnitude than the positive effects of browsing pressure on herbaceous plants diversity. On the other hand, a high stand density index had a positive effect on the species richness and diversity of bryophytes, while browsing had no effect. Forest management abandonment had few direct effects on understory plant communities, and mainly indirectly affected herbaceous vascular plant and bryophyte abundance and species richness and diversity through changes in vertical stand structure. Our results show that conservation biologists should rely on foresters and hunters to lead the preservation of understory vegetation communities in managed forests since, respectively, they manipulate stand structure and regulate ungulate pressure. Their management actions should be adapted to the taxa at stake, since bryophytes and vascular plants respond differently to stand and ungulate factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Criteria and indicators (C & I) to evaluate the sustainability of forest management have been proposed by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Although primarily defined at the national scale, these C & I also have implications at scales ranging from forest stands to the forest management unit. In this paper, we review existing forest growth and ecosystem models from the point of view of applicability to prediction of indicators of sustainable management, focusing on stand scale models and management. To do this, we first present a conceptual framework for understanding the role of models in assessing forest management at the stand level in the context of sustainability criteria and indicators. We classify the criteria into those predictable using models operating at the stand scale, and those derivable either through scaling up or as solutions of a multi-objective management optimisation problem. We conclude that to date, no comprehensive models exist that could be used to predict all the indicators simultaneously. The most promising approach seems to be a modular system where different models are combined and run simultaneously, with shared inputs and well defined mutual links. More modelling efforts are needed especially regarding the state of the soil, including carbon, nitrogen and water balances and physical effects. Models also need development in their ability to deal with heterogeneous stand structures and with non-woody forest products such as berries, mushrooms or cork. The outputs of the models need to be developed in a direction where they can be interpreted in terms of the recreational or biodiversity value of the forest. Data requirements are most pronounced on the same issues as the gaps in model availability. It would be important to consider amending the national forest inventories and other similar standard data collection protocols with variables required for sustainability assessment. Importantly, combining different models in a modular system and with variable data sources requires advanced model parameterisation and evaluation methods and assessment of parameter and model uncertainty. The probabilistic, Bayesian approaches hold a lot of promise in this respect. Predictions using several different models or model systems, with systematic analysis of e.g. inter-model variability, could also be considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The potential of forest nature reserves as refuges for biodiversity seems to be overlooked probably due to their small size. These, however, may constitute important safe havens for saproxylic organisms since forest reserves are relatively numerous in Europe. Saproxylic beetles are among the key groups for the assessment of biodiversity in forest habitats and longhorn beetles may play an important role in bioindication as they are ecologically associated with various microhabitats and considered a very heterogeneous family of insects. To study the role of forest reserves as important habitats for saproxylic beetles, we compared cerambycid assemblages in corresponding pairs of sites (nature reserves and managed stands) in a forest region under high anthropogenic pressure (Upper Silesia, Poland, Central Europe). Moreover, we also intended to assess the role played by these beetles as bioindicators in the different forest types from this area. According to the obtained diversity index values, the most valuable stands are located in nature reserves, whilst sites with the lowest value included managed forests together with two homogeneous and relatively recently established nature reserves. Our analyses demonstrated a positive correlation between deadwood volume and biodiversity, for both species richness and abundance. Our results indicate that the decisive factor is the type of a given habitat, whose characteristics can be mainly influenced/determined by forest management. The potential role of longhorn beetles as bioindicators is highlighted and the effectiveness of using traps in this family, as well as general issues regarding the use of non-selective lethal traps in the study of single invertebrate groups in protected areas are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schall et al. (2020) assessed how a combination of different forest management systems in managed forest landscapes dominated by European beech may affect the biodiversity (alpha, beta and gamma) of 14 taxonomic groups. Current forest policy and nature conservation often demand for combining uneven‐aged managed and unmanaged, set‐aside for nature conservation, beech forests in order to promote biodiversity. In contrast to this, Schall et al. (2020) found even‐aged shelterwood forests, represented by different developmental phases, to support highest regional (gamma) diversity.By pointing out that unmanaged forests included in our study are not old‐growth forests, Bruun and Heilmann‐Clausen (2021) challenge our conclusion as not providing sound scientific advice to societies. It is true that the studied unmanaged forests are not representing old‐growth forests as defined in the literature. However, we demonstrate the representativeness of our unmanaged forests for current beech forest landscapes of Central Europe, where managed forests were more or less recently set‐aside in order to develop old‐growth structures. We also show that the managed and recently unmanaged forests in our study already differ distinctively in their forest structures.We use this response to stress the role of forest reserves for promoting certain species groups, and to emphasise their importance as valuable research sites today and in the future.Synthesis and applications. We see two main conclusions from our study. First, unmanaged forests still matter. We agree with Bruun and Heilmann‐Clausen (2021) on the general importance of unmanaged, old‐growth or long‐untouched forests, and we do not question the importance of set‐aside forests for biodiversity conservation. However, a complete complementarity to managed systems may only reveal after many decades of natural development. Second, safeguarding biodiversity in largely managed forest landscapes should focus on providing a landscape matrix of different developmental phases with varying environmental conditions rather than on maximising the vertical structure within stands. Such landscapes can partly compensate for structures that are still missing in vital, dense and closed forests recently set‐aside or for unsuitable phases that may occur due to a cyclic synchronisation of forest structures in unmanaged forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduced pathogen microorganisms are important drivers of ecosystem change. This paper highlights the impact of the non-native pathogen mildew multi-species complex on the natural regeneration dynamics of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur). Pedunculate oak is a European keystone tree species, hosting a great amount of biodiversity, but its future role in (near-)natural forests is uncertain due to the lack of natural regeneration. We reviewed historical and recent ecological, pathological and forestry literature on topics related to the impact of mildew on the success of advanced natural regeneration of pedunculate oak in (near-)natural forests. We propose a novel hypothesis, the 'pathogen mildew hypothesis', to explain the failure of natural regeneration of pedunculate oak. Mildew reduces shade tolerance and vertical growth in seedlings and saplings, so sapling vitality and competitiveness have diminished considerably since it was unintentionally introduced to Europe in the early 20th century. Due to mildew infection, pedunculate oak in many cases no longer regenerates well naturally under its own canopy. We found that forest ecologists and conservationists often overlook the impacts of this 'recent' driver, while the 'closed-forest' and 'wood-pasture' hypotheses do not adequately help the management of pedunculate oak regeneration. Nature conservation and forest management plans should thus also consider the impact of mildew in order to improve natural regeneration, promote close-to-nature management of pedunculate oak forests, and support associated diversity. More generally, nature conservation, forest ecology and close-to-nature forestry should pay greater attention to the impact of introduced non-native microorganisms on the dynamics of natural ecosystems. Unlabelled Image • Ecologists and conservationists often overlook the impacts of alien microorganisms. • An alien microfungus impedes natural regeneration dynamics of a keystone species • Oak powdery mildew reduces shade tolerance and growth in seedlings and saplings. • Proposed hypothesis explains the failure of natural regeneration of pedunculate oak. • The alien microfungus threatens the rich biodiversity associated with oaks in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retention forestry, which retains a portion of the original stand at the time of harvesting to maintain continuity of structural and compositional diversity, has been originally developed to mitigate the impacts of clear‐cutting. Retention of habitat trees and deadwood has since become common practice also in continuous‐cover forests of Central Europe. While the use of retention in these forests is plausible, the evidence base for its application is lacking, trade‐offs have not been quantified, it is not clear what support it receives from forest owners and other stakeholders and how it is best integrated into forest management practices. The Research Training Group ConFoBi (Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple‐use Landscapes of Central Europe) focusses on the effectiveness of retention forestry, combining ecological studies on forest biodiversity with social and economic studies of biodiversity conservation across multiple spatial scales. The aim of ConFoBi is to assess whether and how structural retention measures are appropriate for the conservation of forest biodiversity in uneven‐aged and selectively harvested continuous‐cover forests of temperate Europe. The study design is based on a pool of 135 plots (1 ha) distributed along gradients of forest connectivity and structure. The main objectives are (a) to investigate the effects of structural elements and landscape context on multiple taxa, including different trophic and functional groups, to evaluate the effectiveness of retention practices for biodiversity conservation; (b) to analyze how forest biodiversity conservation is perceived and practiced, and what costs and benefits it creates; and (c) to identify how biodiversity conservation can be effectively integrated in multi‐functional forest management. ConFoBi will quantify retention levels required across the landscape, as well as the socio‐economic prerequisites for their implementation by forest owners and managers. ConFoBi's research results will provide an evidence base for integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management in temperate forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steadily increasing damage to Norway spruce forests in Europe has caused researchers and managers to consider whether these forests can be converted to more stable ecosystems. In a central European mountain region, we investigated whether management systems (MSs) specified by regional stakeholders provide sound alternatives to the currently applied management. We used the forest model Sibyla to explore whether the tested MSs differ in their sensitivity to climate change in terms of altered biomass production, stand structure, forest damage, and financial outcome. The tested MSs were no-management (NM), currently applied management (BAU), and management based on the preferences of forest managers (FM) or on the preferences of other stakeholders (OSH). With NM, spruce remained dominant during the simulation period 2010-2100, and the rate of damage significantly increased. Spruce also remained dominant with FM, while the abundance of non-spruce species significantly increased with BAU and OSH. The rate of salvage logging converged at 50% of the total harvest for all MSs up to 2050. Climate change reduced biomass production (−15%) with all MSs but had a negligible effect on biodiversity indicators. The average initial value of the simulated stands was 20,000 € ha and the nominal value in 2100 was between 1900 and 10,900 € ha. The Net Present Value calculated with the 2% interest rate was negative during the whole simulation period (−5600 to −18,500 € ha in 2100). Effect of climate change on all financial indicators was negative. Our findings indicate that secondary spruce forests are highly vulnerable and that the systems proposed by both forest managers and other regional stakeholders failed to significantly reduce forest damage and stabilize forest production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological impacts of changing forest management practices in Europe are poorly understood despite European forests being highly managed. Furthermore, the effects of potential drivers of forest biodiversity decline are rarely considered in concert, thus limiting effective conservation or sustainable forest management. We present a trait-based framework that we use to assess the detrimental impact of multiple land-use and management changes in forests on bird populations across Europe. Major changes to forest habitats occurring in recent decades, and their impact on resource availability for birds were identified. Risk associated with these changes for 52 species of forest birds, defined as the proportion of each species' key resources detrimentally affected through changes in abundance and/or availability, was quantified and compared to their pan-European population growth rates between 1980 and 2009. Relationships between risk and population growth were found to be significantly negative, indicating that resource loss in European forests is an important driver of decline for both resident and migrant birds. Our results demonstrate that coarse quantification of resource use and ecological change can be valuable in understanding causes of biodiversity decline, and thus in informing conservation strategy and policy. Such an approach has good potential to be extended for predictive use in assessing the impact of possible future changes to forest management and to develop more precise indicators of forest health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

gro-silvopastoral land-use has a long tradition throughout Europe. Depending on the region, wood-pasture occurs as vanishing relic of historical land-use, or still more or less widespread as multiple-use rangeland. A new development is that former intensively managed land is being left to evolve towards wood-pasture as an economically and ecologically favourable alternative. In a review of European wood-pasture habitats we distinguish 24 types based on the geobotanical criteria of region, structure, land-use and tree species composition. The European wood-pasture types may be classified as hemiboreal and boreal (4 types), nemoral old-growth (7), nemoral scrub and coppice (5), meridional old-growth (2), meridional scrub and coppice (4), and grazed orchards (2). Wood-pasture forms part of the cultural heritage of Europe, and may add significantly to the preservation of regional biodiversity. The role of wood-pasture in ecological restoration planning and the possibilities of maintaining or enhancing features of wood-pasture deserve more recognition. Many wood-pastures suffer from regeneration failure and are over-mature. Other threats to wood-pasture include abandonment, intensification, oak disease, overgrazing and clearance. In the European Union Habitats Directive, wood-pasture habitats are represented but rather inconsistently. We suggest neglected wood-pasture habitat types to be considered for inclusion. Wood-pasture may form an important element for the economic integrity of rural areas aiming to improve ecological quality‚ provided they are managed sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selecting a variant of forest regeneration cuttings that would ensure fulfilling multiple, frequently conflicting forest functions is a challenging task for forest management planning. The aim of this work is to present an efficient and complex analysis of the impact of different forest management scenarios on stand wind stability, timber production (economy), and biodiversity of a secondary mixed temperate forest in Central Europe. We evaluated four different harvest-regeneration systems: clear-cutting, shelter-wood, selection cutting, and no-cutting using theSIBYLA growth simulator. We simulated forest stand development over time and applied 450 variants of 4 harvest-regeneration systems. The selected outputs from the simulator were used as indicators of the fulfilment of wood-production and non-wood-production functions. The calculated indicators were forest stability (height/diameter ratio), economic efficiency (soil expectation value, SEV), and tree species diversity (Shannon index). These indicators were used as inputs for multi-criteria a posteriori decision analysis using the weighted summation method and Pareto fronts. The results revealed substantial trade-offs among the three investigated criteria. The decision space was highly sensitive to their weighting system and included all regeneration systems. The Pareto fronts for wind stability revealed that the maximum stability could be achieved with shelter-wood based on target diameter. This variant, however, fulfils the other two examined functions only to a limited extent (SEV and diversity only to 9% and 27% of their absolute maxima). Other similar variants achieve high stability by sacrificing the diversity and increasing SEV, simultaneously. If a high diversity level is favoured, optimal stability could be achieved by the selection system. The proposed approach enables objective testing of a large number of variants, and an objective assessment of stand management planning since it provides us with the complex multi-dimensional picture about the impact of criteria weights on the selection of optimal variants, and the relative fulfilment of individual criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Including biodiversity assessments in forest management planning is becoming increasingly important due to the importance of biodiversity for forest ecosystem resilience provision and sustainable functioning. Here we investigated the potential to include biodiversity indicators into forest management planning in Europe. In particular, we aimed to (i) identify biodiversity indicators and data collection methods for biodiversity assessments at the stand and landscape levels, and (ii) evaluate the practicality of those indicators for forest management planning. We performed a literature review in which we screened 188 research studies published between 1990 and 2020. We selected 94 studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria and examined in more detail. We considered three aspects of biodiversity: structure, composition, and function, and four forest management categories: unmanaged, managed, plantation, and silvopastoral. We used three criteria to evaluate the practicality of forest biodiversity indicators: cost-effectiveness, ease of application, and time-effectiveness. We identified differences in the practicality of biodiversity indicators for their incorporation into management plans. Stand-level indicators are more practical than landscape-level indicators. Moreover, structural biodiversity indicators (e.g., large trees, canopy openness, and old forest stands) are more useful in management plans than compositional indicators, as these are easily observable by non-professionals and can be obtained by forest inventories. Compositional indicators such are vascular plants, fungi, bryophyte, lichens, and invertebrate species are hard to identify by non-professionals and thus are impractical. Functional indicators (e.g., nutrient cycling) are not sufficiently addressed in the literature. Using recently updated existing databases (e.g., national forest inventories and bird atlases) is very time and cost-efficient. Remote sensing and other technology (e.g., smartphone applications) are promising for efficient data collection in the future. However, more research is needed to make these tools more accurate and applicable to a variety of ecological conditions and scales. Until then, forest stand structural variables derived from inventories can help improve management plans to prepare European forests towards an uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe only some small isolated patches of forests with a high degree of naturalness still exist. These are forests, whose structure, composition and function has been shaped by natural dynamics without substantial anthropogenic influence over the long period. In this respect, Białowieża Forest is a unique location in Europe, with continuous forest cover for close to 12,000 years. The palynological, archaeological and historical data document only a weak anthropogenic fingerprint compared to other European lowland forests in Holocene history. Due to long-lasting protection, a large portion of the forest is still composed of stands originating from the pre-silvicultural period. Moreover, the stands of Białowieża Forest converted by silvicultural activities during the 20th century have the potential to recover owing to patches of stands with high naturalness, scattered throughout the forest. As conflict over management of the forest has recurred regularly for close to century, there is a need to summarize our knowledge on the forest history and natural assets, to help making scientifically informed decisions over its future. Expansion of a non-intervention approach to the Polish part of the forest is suggested to increase the stability of the entire ecosystem and enhance the chances for its successful adaptation to changing environmental conditions. This will increase the importance of Białowieża Forest as an open-door laboratory for biology, ecology, and forestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]