Retention as an integrated biodiversity conservation approach for continuous-cover forestry in Europe.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Gustafsson L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6889099 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description: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.
| S-EPMC7029101 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Industrial forestry typically leads to a simplified forest structure and altered species composition. Retention of trees at harvest was introduced about 25 years ago to mitigate negative impacts on biodiversity, mainly from clearcutting, and is now widely practiced in boreal and temperate regions. Despite numerous studies on response of flora and fauna to retention, no comprehensive review has summarized its effects on biodiversity in comparison to clearcuts as well as un-harvested forests. Using a systematic review protocol, we completed a meta-analysis of 78 studies including 944 comparisons of biodiversity between retention cuts and either clearcuts or un-harvested forests, with the main objective of assessing whether retention forestry helps, at least in the short term, to moderate the negative effects of clearcutting on flora and fauna. Retention cuts supported higher richness and a greater abundance of forest species than clearcuts as well as higher richness and abundance of open-habitat species than un-harvested forests. For all species taken together (i.e. forest species, open-habitat species, generalist species and unclassified species), richness was higher in retention cuts than in clearcuts. Retention cuts had negative impacts on some species compared to un-harvested forest, indicating that certain forest-interior species may not survive in retention cuts. Similarly, retention cuts were less suitable for some open-habitat species compared with clearcuts. Positive effects of retention cuts on richness of forest species increased with proportion of retained trees and time since harvest, but there were not enough data to analyse possible threshold effects, that is, levels at which effects on biodiversity diminish. Spatial arrangement of the trees (aggregated vs. dispersed) had no effect on either forest species or open-habitat species, although limited data may have hindered our capacity to identify responses. Results for different comparisons were largely consistent among taxonomic groups for forest and open-habitat species, respectively. Synthesis and applications. Our meta-analysis provides support for wider use of retention forestry since it moderates negative harvesting impacts on biodiversity. Hence, it is a promising approach for integrating biodiversity conservation and production forestry, although identifying optimal solutions between these two goals may need further attention. Nevertheless, retention forestry will not substitute for conservation actions targeting certain highly specialized species associated with forest-interior or open-habitat conditions. Our meta-analysis provides support for wider use of retention forestry since it moderates negative harvesting impacts on biodiversity. Hence, it is a promising approach for integrating biodiversity conservation and production forestry, although identifying optimal solutions between these two goals may need further attention. Nevertheless, retention forestry will not substitute for conservation actions targeting certain highly specialized species associated with forest-interior or open-habitat conditions.
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Project description:Continuous-cover forestry (CCF) has been recognized for the production of multiple ecosystem services, and is seen as an alternative to clear-cut forestry (CF). Despite the increasing interest, it is still not well described how CCF would affect the carbon balance and the resulting climate benefit from the forest in relation to CF. This study compares carbon balances of CF and CCF, applied as two alternative land-use strategies for a heterogeneous Norway spruce (Picea abies) stand. We use a set of models to analyze the long-term effects of different forest management and wood use strategies in Sweden on carbon dioxide emissions and carbon stock changes. The results show that biomass growth and yield is more important than the choice of silvicultural system per se. When comparing CF and CCF assuming similar growth, extraction and product use, only minor differences in long-term climate benefit were found between the two principally different silvicultural systems.
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Project description:Land-based mitigation measures are needed to achieve climate targets. One option is the mitigation of currently high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of nutrient-rich drained peatland forest soils. Continuous cover forestry (CCF) has been proposed as a measure to manage this GHG emission source; however, its emission reduction potential and impact on timber production at regional and national scales have not been quantified. To quantify the potential emission reduction, we simulated four management scenarios for Finnish forests: (i) The replacement of clear-cutting by selection harvesting on nutrient-rich drained peatlands (CCF) and (ii) the current forest management regime (BAU), and both at two harvest levels, namely (i) the mean annual harvesting (2016-2018) and (ii) the maximum sustainable yield. The simulations were conducted at the stand scale with a forest simulator (MELA) coupled with a hydrological model (SpaFHy), soil C model (Yasso07) and empirical GHG exchange models. Simulations showed that the management scenario that avoided clear-cutting on nutrient-rich drained peatlands (i.e. CCF) produced approximately 1 Tg CO2 eq. higher carbon sinks annually compared with BAU at equal harvest level for Finland. This emission reduction can be attributed to the maintenance of a higher biomass sink and to the mitigation of soil emissions from nutrient-rich drained peatland sites.
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Project description:Approximately 15.5% of global forest is controlled by ~1 billion local people and the area under community control is increasing. However, there is limited empirical evidence as to whether community control is effective in providing critical global ecosystem services, such as biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. We assess the effectiveness of one example of community-controlled forest, Nepal's Community Forestry Program (CFP), at providing biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. Using data from 620 randomly selected CFP and non-CFP forest plots, we apply a robust matching method based on covariates to estimate whether CFPs are associated with greater biodiversity conservation or carbon storage. Our results reveal a significant positive effect of CFP on biodiversity, which is robust against the influence of unobserved covariates. Our results also suggest a significant negative effect of the CFP on aboveground tree and sapling carbon (AGC) at the national scale (-15.11 Mg C ha-1). However, the CFP has a mixed effect on carbon across geographic and topographic regions and in forests with different canopy covers. Though there were no significant effects of the CFP on AGC at lower altitudes, in the Terai or hill regions, and under closed canopies, there were positive effects in open canopies (25.84 Mg C ha-1) at lower slopes (25.51 Mg C ha-1) and negative effects at higher altitudes (-22.81 Mg C ha-1) and higher slopes (-17.72 Mg C ha-1). Our sensitivity analysis revealed that the positive effects are robust to unobserved covariates, which is not true for the negative results. In aggregate, our results demonstrate that CFP can be an effective forest management strategy to contribute to global ecosystem services such as biodiversity, and to a lesser extent carbon.
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Project description:Biodiversity loss--one of the most prominent forms of modern environmental change--has been heavily driven by terrestrial habitat loss and, in particular, the spread and intensification of agriculture. Expanding agricultural land-use has led to the search for strong conservation strategies, with some suggesting that biodiversity conservation in agriculture is best maximized by reducing local management intensity, such as fertilizer and pesticide application. Others highlight the importance of landscape-level approaches that incorporate natural or semi-natural areas in landscapes surrounding farms. Here, we show that both of these practices are valuable to the conservation of biodiversity, and that either local or landscape factors can be most crucial to conservation planning depending on which types of organisms one wishes to save. We performed a quantitative review of 266 observations taken from 31 studies that compared the impacts of localized (within farm) management strategies and landscape complexity (around farms) on the richness and abundance of plant, invertebrate and vertebrate species in agro-ecosystems. While both factors significantly impacted species richness, the richness of sessile plants increased with less-intensive local management, but did not significantly respond to landscape complexity. By contrast, the richness of mobile vertebrates increased with landscape complexity, but did not significantly increase with less-intensive local management. Invertebrate richness and abundance responded to both factors. Our analyses point to clear differences in how various groups of organisms respond to differing scales of management, and suggest that preservation of multiple taxonomic groups will require multiple scales of conservation.
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Project description:Natural disasters impose huge uncertainty and loss to human lives and economic activities. Landslides are one disaster that has become more prevalent because of anthropogenic disturbances, such as land-cover changes, land degradation, and expansion of infrastructure. These are further exacerbated by more extreme precipitation due to climate change, which is predicted to trigger more landslides and threaten sustainable development in vulnerable regions. Although biodiversity conservation and development are often regarded as having a trade-off relationship, here we present a global analysis of the area with co-benefits, where conservation through expanding protection and reducing deforestation can not only benefit biodiversity but also reduce landslide risks to human society. High overlap exists between landslide susceptibility and areas of endemism for mammals, birds, and amphibians, which are mostly concentrated in mountain regions. We identified 247 mountain ranges as areas with high vulnerability, having both exceptional biodiversity and landslide risks, accounting for 25.8% of the global mountainous areas. Another 31 biodiverse mountains are classified as future vulnerable mountains as they face increasing landslide risks because of predicted climate change and deforestation. None of these 278 mountains reach the Aichi Target 11 of 17% coverage by protected areas. Of the 278 mountains, 52 need immediate actions because of high vulnerability, severe threats from future deforestation and precipitation extremes, low protection, and high-population density and anthropogenic activities. These actions include protected area expansion, forest conservation, and restoration where it could be a cost-effective way to reduce the risks of landslides.
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Project description:The natural range of variation of ecosystems provides reference conditions for sustainable management and biodiversity conservation. We review how the understanding of natural reference conditions of boreal forests in northern Europe has changed from earlier perceptions of even-aged dynamics driven by stand-replacing disturbances towards current understanding highlighting the role of non-stand-replacing disturbances and the resultant complex forest dynamics and structures. We show how earlier views and conceptual models of forest disturbance dynamics, including the influential ASIO model, provide estimates of reference conditions that are outside the natural range of variation. Based on a research synthesis, we present a revised forest reference model incorporating the observed complexity of ecosystem dynamics and the prevalence of old forests. Finally, we outline a management model and demonstrate its use in forest ecosystem management and show how regional conservation area needs can be estimated. We conclude that attaining favourable conservation status in northern Europe's boreal forests requires increasing emphasis on ecosystem management and conservation for old forest characteristics.
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