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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. Can managing forests for storing carbon jointly achieve biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation goals? Global and regional environmental policies often assume co‐benefits between carbon and biodiversity, but it is unclear whether this assumption holds at fine scales relevant for management. By modelling the carbon–biodiversity relationship for a broad range of taxa in temperate forests, we found that biodiversity and carbon stocks are not well‐aligned spatially at stand‐scale, and their relationship varied substantially across taxa. This suggests that forest management aimed at storing carbon may benefit some taxa but harm others, highlighting that broad‐scale co‐benefits may break down at fine scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T ree re lated M icrohabitats (hereafter TreMs) have been widely recognized as important substrates and structures for biodiversity in both commercial and protected forests and are receiving increasing attention in management, conservation and research. How to record TreMs in forest inventories is a question of recent interest since TreMs represent potential indirect indicators for the specialized species that use them as substrates or habitat at least for a part of their life-cycle. However, there is a wide range of differing interpretations as to what exactly constitutes a TreM and what specific features should be surveyed in the field. In an attempt to harmonize future TreM inventories, we propose a definition and a typology of TreM types borne by living and dead standing trees in temperate and Mediterranean forests in Europe. Our aim is to provide users with definitions which make unequivocal TreM determination possible. Our typology is structured around seven basic forms according to morphological characteristics and biodiversity relevance: i) cavities lato sensu, ii) tree injuries and exposed wood, iii) crown deadwood, iv) excrescences, v) fruiting bodies of saproxylic fungi and fungi-like organisms, vi) epiphytic and epixylic structures, and vii) exudates. The typology is then further detailed into 15 groups and 47 types with a hierarchical structure allowing the typology to be used for different purposes. The typology, along with guidelines for standardized recording we propose, is an unprecedented reference tool to make data on TreMs comparable across different regions, forest types and tree species, and should greatly improve the reliability of TreM monitoring. It provides the basis for compiling these data and may help to improve the reliability of reporting and evaluation of the conservation value of forests. Finally, our work emphasizes the need for further research on TreMs to better understand their dynamics and their link with biodiversity in order to more fully integrate TreM monitoring into forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Plot context primarily explains tree-related microhabitats occurrence. • Plot context is a black box combining environmental, management and biotic factors. • From the literature, we identified 21 factors that may play a key role in TreM formation. • A sub-set of 9 factors that should be prioritised in the future is suggested. Tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) have been identified as key features for forest-dwelling taxa and are often employed as measures for biodiversity conservation in integrative forest management. However, managing forests to ensure an uninterrupted resource supply for TreM-dwelling taxa is challenging since TreMs are structures with a limited availability, some of which are triggered by stochastic events or require a long time to develop. At the tree scale, the role of tree species, diameter at breast height (dbh) and status (i.e. living vs standing dead) for favouring TreM occurrence has been quantified and modelled in several studies, since these tree features are routinely recorded in the field. However, TreM occurrence remains difficult to predict, hampering the elaboration of applicable management strategies that consider TreMs. Using an international database encompassing 110,000 trees, we quantified the explanatory power of tree species, dbh, status, time since last harvest and plot context for predicting TreM occurrence at the tree level. Plot context is so far a "black box" that combines local environmental conditions, past and current management legacies, with local biotic features that have high explanatory power for predicting TreM occurrence. Then, based on the literature, we established a set of 21 factors related to site, stand and tree features for which there is a strong assumption that they play a key role in TreM formation. Finally, we identified a sub-set of nine features that should be recorded in the future to provide additional information to enable better prediction of the occurrence of particular TreMs: (i) at plot level: slope, exposure, altitude and presence of cliffs; and (ii) at tree level: bark features, phyllotaxis and compartmentalization capacity of the tree species, plus ontogenic stage and physiological state of the individual tree sampled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Unmanaged forest reserves are designed to preserve or restore typical forest biodiversity, such as forest specialist or dispersal-limited forest species. Yet some species groups might be more dependent on specific habitat features than on forest management per se. We therefore investigated the respective influence of forest management abandonment and habitat characteristics on ground beetles in six French forests comprising both managed and unmanaged areas (85 plots). We hypothesised contrasted responses of carabid species richness depending on ecological and life-history traits (habitat affinity, dispersal ability, diet and moisture affinity). Management abandonment favoured only two ecological groups: forest specialists and openland species. For the other groups, management abandonment was not the main driver. Basal area and humus activity – respectively proxies for canopy closure and food supply – increased total species richness and richness of four ecological groups (forest, wingless, moisture indifferent and carnivorous species). Small scale variables, such as ground vegetation structure, most influenced habitat generalists, winged, hygrophilous and xerophilous species. The effect of forest management abandonment may have been limited either because the reserves we studied have been set aside too recently (15–45years ago), or because harvesting in the managed forests was relatively extensive (no clearcutting or slash harvesting). We emphasise the importance of taking stand structure into account to plan for biodiversity conservation in managed forests. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To assess forest conservation value, McMullin and Wiersma ([8]) recently proposed a focus on forest-cover continuity over time rather than tree age. [15]; Flinn and Vellend [4]), a taxonomic group that - relative to lichens - is much more accessible to forest managers, and many regional lists of ancient forest plant species have been developed (Hermy I et al i . [Extracted from the article]