Sustainable forest planning: Assessing biodiversity effects of Triad zoning based on empirical data and virtual landscapes
Abstract
The Triad framework seeks to balance the economic and ecological functions in forested landscapes by combining intensively, extensively, and unmanaged areas, assuming a higher support to biodiversity in extensively rather than in intensively managed forests. We quantified the effects of Triad zoning on biodiversity in (sub)montane eutrophic European beech forests. Using a European-wide multitaxon database and a “virtual” landscape approach (i.e., by resampling empirical data), we evaluated how the proportion of Triad management categories affected the landscape-level species diversity of birds, saproxylic beetles, vascular plants, epiphytic bryophytes, lichens, and wood-inhabiting fungi, as well as multitaxonomic diversity. The results varied greatly among taxonomic groups. Multitaxonomic diversity peaked in landscapes composed of 60% unmanaged and 40% intensively managed forests. While intensive management can benefit some taxa through the creation of open habitats, unmanaged forests are the backbone of biodiversity conservation, underlining the need to safeguard the remaining old-growth forests under natural dynamics, and to extend the current area of unmanaged forests in Europe. Extensive forest management, however, did not contribute to biodiversity conservation as expected. As withdrawing such a high proportion of European forest landscapes from management is unfeasible given the increasing demand for timber, efforts are needed to increase the presence of structural features supporting biodiversity into extensively managed forests.
Article Details
Journal Info
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Authors (24)
Rémi Duflot
Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä
Steffi Heinrichs
Silviculture and Forest Ecology of the Temperate Zones, University of Göttingen
Lorenzo Balducci
Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome
Francesco Chianucci
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA)—Research Centre for Forestry and Wood
Jeňýk Hofmeister
Department of Forest Ecology, Czech University of Life Sciences
Yoan Paillet
Mountain Ecosystem and Society Laboratory (Lessem), Université Grenoble Alpes, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE)
Giovanni Trentanovi
Research Institute on Terrestrial Ecosystems, National Research Council
Frédéric Archaux
Forest Ecosystems Research Unit (EFNO), National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE)
Steffen Boch
Habitat Dynamics, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
Christophe Bouget
Forest Ecosystems Research Unit (EFNO), National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE)
Daniel Dvořák
Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University
Markus Fischer
Frédéric Gosselin
Forest Ecosystems Research Unit (EFNO), National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE)
Marion Gosselin
Forest Ecosystems Research Unit (EFNO), National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE)
Martin M. Gossner
Forest Entomology, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
Eva Holá
Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia
Jan Hošek
Ecological Services
Kirsten Jung
Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, Department of Biology, Ulm University
Zdeněk Palice
Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Swen C. Renner
Ornithology, Natural History Museum
Wolfgang W. Weisser
Terrestrial Ecology Research Group, Department of Life Science Systems, School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich
Thomas A. Nagel
Sabina Burrascano
Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome
Peter Schall
Silviculture and Forest Ecology of the Temperate Zones, University of Göttingen