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In the temperate zone of Europe, Scots pine forests are expected to occupy the poorest habitats which are unfavourable for deciduous trees. However, as a result of deforestation of the most fertile habitats and the preference for Pinus sylvestris in silviculture, pine forests have become the dominant feature of the landscape in Central Europe. As a result, the area of optimal habitat for deciduous forest flora has been significantly reduced. Nevertheless, remnant patches of deciduous forest persist as habitat islands within extensive pine forest complexes and may serve as important refugia for meso- and eutrophilic forest species. However, the factors that contribute to the variation in species composition of such habitat islands and their role in maintaining biodiversity remain poorly understood. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap. The studied deciduous (oak) stands exhibited a diverse vegetation, with species composition influenced by overstorey attributes, oak age, patch location, and the area and circularity of the deciduous forest. Species traits related to environmental variables included mainly preferences for closed or open forests, requirements for soil moisture, reaction, and fertility, and requirements for light conditions. The key message from our research is that oak islands are not simply patches of trees that are different from the surrounding area. Instead, they represent distinct plant communities that have developed to adapt to the prevailing environmental conditions by recruiting species with particular traits. The presence of oak islands within Scots pine monocultures is therefore important for increasing the diversity of the forest complex. The most relevant recommendation from our research for forest management is to maintain as many patches of deciduous tree stands as possible within a single pine forest complex, as even small habitat islands can make a significant contribution to the biodiversity of the forest complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests provide a wide variety of ecosystem services (ES) to society. The boreal biome is experiencing the highest rates of warming on the planet and increasing demand for forest products. To foresee how to maximize the adaptation of boreal forests to future warmer conditions and growing demands of forest products, we need a better understanding of the relative importance of forest management and climate change on the supply of ecosystem services. Here, using Finland as a boreal forest case study, we assessed the potential supply of a wide range of ES (timber, bilberry, cowberry, mushrooms, carbon storage, scenic beauty, species habitat availability and deadwood) given seven management regimes and four climate change scenarios. We used the forest simulator SIMO to project forest dynamics for 100 years into the future (2016–2116) and estimate the potential supply of each service using published models. Then, we tested the relative importance of management and climate change as drivers of the future supply of these services using generalized linear mixed models. Our results show that the effects of management on the future supply of these ES were, on average, 11 times higher than the effects of climate change across all services, but greatly differed among them (from 0.53 to 24 times higher for timber and cowberry, respectively). Notably, the importance of these drivers substantially differed among biogeographical zones within the boreal biome. The effects of climate change were 1.6 times higher in northern Finland than in southern Finland, whereas the effects of management were the opposite—they were three times higher in the south compared to the north. We conclude that new guidelines for adapting forests to global change should account for regional differences and the variation in the effects of climate change and management on different forest ES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have emphasized forests as crucial habitat for wild bees. In Europe, most forests are managed following the principles of close‐to‐nature silviculture, which combine timber production and nature conservation. However, open late and early successional stages within these forests are largely missing, which could be important for wild bees. This highlights that close‐to‐nature silviculture alone might not be sufficient to conserve bees within temperate forests. Open structures such as canopy gaps and road verges in forests could improve habitat for bees. To provide management recommendations for wild bee conservation in temperate forests, we analyzed how components of bee beta diversity varied between forest management types and tested how open structures, namely clear‐cuts, canopy gaps, and forest road verges influenced bee abundance, richness, and diversity. In addition, we analyzed the abundance and percent of red‐listed bee species at different scales. Bees were sampled using 90 pan traps on 45 (1 ha) plots in 2019 and 2020 in the Black Forest, Germany. Plots were selected in 15 triplets each consisting of three management types related to different successional stages: unmanaged, close‐to‐nature, and small clear‐cut. Beta diversity was not consistently nested highlighting the importance of different management and successional stages within the landscape to support bees in forests. Abundance, species richness, and Shannon diversity of bees were highest on clear‐cuts, compared to unmanaged‐ and close‐to‐nature plots. At landscape scale, wild bee abundance increased with canopy openness while wild bee diversity increased with landscape heterogeneity. Abundance‐ and percent of red‐listed bee species increased with the length of forest road verges. We advocate creating habitats at local scales which offer flowering and nesting resources by providing canopy gaps. At landscape scale, heterogeneity created through different forest successional stages is needed to conserve the entire community of wild bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the short‐ and long‐term consequences for atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations of forest management strategies and forest product uses in Sweden by comparing the modelled consequences of forest resource use vs. increased conservation at different levels of GHG savings from carbon sequestration and product substitution with bioenergy and other forest products. Increased forest set‐asides for conservation resulted in larger GHG reductions only in the short term and only when substitution effects were low. In all other cases, forest use was more beneficial. In all scenarios, annual carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration rates declined in conservation forests as they mature, eventually approaching a steady state. Forest set‐asides are thus associated with increasing opportunity costs corresponding to foregone wood production and associated mitigation losses. Substitution and sequestration rates under all other forest management strategies rise, providing support for sustained harvest and cumulative mitigation gains. The impact of increased fertilization was everywhere beneficial to the climate and surpassed the mitigation potential of the other scenarios. Climate change can have large—positive or negative—influence on outcomes. Despite uncertainties, the results indicate potentially large benefits from forest use for wood production. These benefits, however, are not clearly linked with forestry in UNFCCC reporting, and the European Union's Land Use, Land‐Use Change and Forestry carbon accounting, framework may even prevent their full realization. These reporting and accounting frameworks may further have the consequence of encouraging land set‐asides and reduced forest use at the expense of future biomass production. Further, carbon leakage and resulting biodiversity impacts due to increased use of more GHG‐intensive products, including imported products associated with deforestation and land degradation, are inadequately assessed. Considerable opportunity to better mobilize the climate change mitigation potential of Swedish forests therefore remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of forest management on biodiversity is difficult to scrutinize along gradients of management. A step towards analyzing the impact of forest management on biodiversity is comparisons between managed and primary forests. The standardized typology of tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) is a multi-taxon indicator used to quantify forest biodiversity. We aim to analyze the influence of environmental factors on the occurrence of groups of TreMs by comparing primary and managed forests. We collected data for the managed forests in the Black Forest (Germany) and for the primary forests in the Western (Slovakia) and Southern Carpathians (Romania). To model the richness and the different groups of TreMs per tree, we used generalized linear mixed models with diameter at breast height (DBH), altitude, slope and aspect as predictors for European beech (Fagus sylvatica (L.)), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.)) and silver fir (Abies alba (Mill.)) in primary and managed temperate mountain forests. We found congruent results for overall richness and the vast majority of TreM groups. Trees in primary forests hosted a greater richness of all and specific types of TreMs than individuals in managed forests. The main drivers of TreMs are DBH and altitude, while slope and aspect play a minor role. We recommend forest and nature conservation managers to focus: 1) on the conservation of remaining primary forests and 2) approaches of biodiversity-oriented forest management on the selection of high-quality habitat trees that already provide a high number of TreMs in managed forests based on the comparison with primary forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global forests are the main component of the land carbon sink, which acts as a partial buffer to CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere. Dynamic vegetation models offer an approach to projecting the development of forest carbon sink capacity in a future climate. Forest management capabilities are important to include in dynamic vegetation models to account for the effects of age and species structure and wood harvest on carbon stocks and carbon storage potential. This article describes the implementation of a forest management module containing even-age and clear-cut and uneven-age and continuous-cover management alternatives in the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS. Different age and species structure initialisation strategies and harvest alternatives are introduced. The model is applied at stand and European scales. Different management alternatives are applied in simulations of European beech (Fagus sylvaticus) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) even-aged monoculture stands in central Europe and evaluated against above-ground standing stem volume and harvested volume data from long-term experimental plots. At the European scale, an automated thinning and clear-cut strategy is applied. Modelled carbon stocks and fluxes are evaluated against reported data at the continent and country levels. Including wood harvest in regrowth forests increases the simulated total European carbon sink by 32 % in 1991–2015 and improves the fit to the reported European carbon sink, growing stock, and net annual increment (NAI). Growing stock (156 m 3 ha -1) and NAI (5.4 m 3 ha 1 yr 1) densities in 2010 are close to reported values, while the carbon sink density in 2000–2007 (0.085 kg C m -2 yr 1) equates to 63 % of reported values, most likely reflecting uncertainties in carbon fluxes from soil given the unaccounted for forest land-use history in the simulations. The fit of modelled and reported values for individual European countries varies, but NAI is generally closer to reported values when including wood harvest in simulations. [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]