TY - JOUR A1 - Schall, Peter A1 - Gossner, Martin M. A1 - Heinrichs, Steffi A1 - Fischer, Markus A1 - Boch, Steffen A1 - Prati, Daniel A1 - Jung, Kirsten A1 - Baumgartner, Vanessa A1 - Blaser, Stefan A1 - Böhm, Stefan A1 - Buscot, Francois A1 - Daniel, Rolf A1 - Goldmann, Kezia A1 - Kaiser, Kristin A1 - Kahl, Tiemo A1 - Lange, Markus A1 - Müller, Jörg Hans A1 - Overmann, Jörg A1 - Renner, Swen C. A1 - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef A1 - Sikorski, Johannes A1 - Tschapka, Marco A1 - Türke, Manfred A1 - Weisser, Wolfgang W. A1 - Wemheuer, Bernd A1 - Wubet, Tesfaye A1 - Ammer, Christian T1 - The impact of even-aged and uneven-aged forest management on regional biodiversity of multiple taxa in European beech forests JF - Journal of applied ecology : an official journal of the British Ecological Society N2 - 1. For managed temperate forests, conservationists and policymakers favour fine-grained uneven-aged (UEA) management over more traditional coarse-grained even-aged (EA) management, based on the assumption that within-stand habitat heterogeneity enhances biodiversity. There is, however, little empirical evidence to support this assumption. We investigated for the first time how differently grained forest management systems affect the biodiversity of multiple above- and below-ground taxa across spatial scales. 2. We sampled 15 taxa of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria within the largest contiguous beech forest landscape of Germany and classified them into functional groups. Selected forest stands have been managed for more than a century at different spatial grains. The EA (coarse-grained management) and UEA (fine-grained) forests are comparable in spatial arrangement, climate and soil conditions. These were compared to forests of a nearby national park that have been unmanaged for at least 20years. We used diversity accumulation curves to compare -diversity for Hill numbers D-0 (species richness), D-1 (Shannon diversity) and D-2 (Simpson diversity) between the management systems. Beta diversity was quantified as multiple-site dissimilarity. 3. Gamma diversity was higher in EA than in UEA forests for at least one of the three Hill numbers for six taxa (up to 77%), while eight showed no difference. Only bacteria showed the opposite pattern. Higher -diversity in EA forests was also found for forest specialists and saproxylic beetles. 4. Between-stand -diversity was higher in EA than in UEA forests for one-third (all species) and half (forest specialists) of all taxa, driven by environmental heterogeneity between age-classes, while -diversity showed no directional response across taxa or for forest specialists. 5. Synthesis and applications. Comparing EA and uneven-aged forest management in Central European beech forests, our results show that a mosaic of different age-classes is more important for regional biodiversity than high within-stand heterogeneity. We suggest reconsidering the current trend of replacing even-aged management in temperate forests. Instead, the variability of stages and stand structures should be increased to promote landscape-scale biodiversity. KW - beta diversity KW - forest specialists KW - gamma diversity KW - heterogeneity KW - Hill numbers KW - saproxylic beetles KW - spatial grain KW - species accumulation curve KW - species richness KW - species turnover Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12950 SN - 0021-8901 SN - 1365-2664 VL - 55 IS - 1 SP - 267 EP - 278 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinze, Eric A1 - Boch, Steffen A1 - Fischer, Markus A1 - Hessenmöller, Dominik A1 - Klenk, Bernd A1 - Müller, Jörg A1 - Prati, Daniel A1 - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef A1 - Seele, Carolin A1 - Socher, Stephanie A1 - Halle, Stefan T1 - Habitat use of large ungulates in northeastern Germany in relation to forest management JF - Forest ecology and management N2 - Estimating large herbivore density has been a major area of research in recent decades. Previous studies monitoring ungulate density, however, focused mostly on determining animal abundance, and did not interpret animal distribution in relation to habitat parameters. We surveyed large ungulates in the Biodiversity Exploratory Schorfheide-Chorin using faecal pellet group counts. This allowed us to explore the link between relative ungulate abundance, habitat use, and browsing damage on trees in a region with several types of forest, including unharvested and age-class beech forests, as well as age-class pine forests. Our results demonstrate that roe deer and fallow deer relative abundance is negatively correlated with large tree cover, and positively correlated with the cover of small shrubs (Rubus spec., Vaccinium spec.), and winter food supply. Habitat use of roe deer and fallow deer, as estimated by counting faecal pellet groups, revealed a preference for mature pine forests, and avoidance of deciduous forests. This differential habitat use is explained by different distributions of high quality food resources during winter. The response of deer to understory cover differed between roe deer and fallow deer at high cover percentages. The amount of browsing damage we observed on coniferous trees was not consistent with the relative deer abundance. Browsing damage was consistently higher on most deciduous trees, except for beech saplings which sustained less damage when roe deer density was low. Because roe deer is a highly selective feeder, it was reported to affect tree diversity by feeding only on trees with high nutritional value. Consequently, we propose that managing the number of all deer species by hunting is necessary to allow successful forest regeneration. Such an adjustment to deer numbers would need to account for both current tree diversity and alternative food resources. Our findings may be applicable to other forest landscapes in northeastern Germany including mature pine stands and differently harvested deciduous forests. KW - Large ungulates KW - Faecal pellet group count KW - Forest management KW - Browsing damage Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2010.10.022 SN - 0378-1127 VL - 261 IS - 2 SP - 288 EP - 296 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -