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 - Maes, Sybryn L. A1 - Perring, Michael P. A1 - Vanhellemont, Margot A1 - Depauw, Leen A1 - Van den Bulcke, Jan A1 - Brumelis, Guntis A1 - Brunet, Jorg A1 - Decocq, Guillaume A1 - den Ouden, Jan A1 - Härdtle, Werner A1 - Hedl, Radim A1 - Heinken, Thilo A1 - Heinrichs, Steffi A1 - Jaroszewicz, Bogdan A1 - Kopecký, Martin A1 - Malis, Frantisek A1 - Wulf, Monika A1 - Verheyen, Kris T1 - Environmental drivers interactively affect individual tree growth across temperate European forests JF - Global change biology N2 - Forecasting the growth of tree species to future environmental changes requires abetter understanding of its determinants. Tree growth is known to respond to global‐change drivers such as climate change or atmospheric deposition, as well as to localland‐use drivers such as forest management. Yet, large geographical scale studiesexamining interactive growth responses to multiple global‐change drivers are relativelyscarce and rarely consider management effects. Here, we assessed the interactiveeffects of three global‐change drivers (temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposi-tion) on individual tree growth of three study species (Quercus robur/petraea, Fagus syl-vatica and Fraxinus excelsior). We sampled trees along spatial environmental gradientsacross Europe and accounted for the effects of management for Quercus. We collectedincrement cores from 267 trees distributed over 151 plots in 19 forest regions andcharacterized their neighbouring environment to take into account potentially confounding factors such as tree size, competition, soil conditions and elevation. Wedemonstrate that growth responds interactively to global‐change drivers, with species ‐specific sensitivities to the combined factors. Simultaneously high levels of precipita-tion and deposition benefited Fraxinus, but negatively affected Quercus’ growth, high-lighting species‐specific interactive tree growth responses to combined drivers. ForFagus, a stronger growth response to higher temperatures was found when precipita-tion was also higher, illustrating the potential negative effects of drought stress underwarming for this species. Furthermore, we show that past forest management canmodulate the effects of changing temperatures on Quercus’ growth; individuals in plotswith a coppicing history showed stronger growth responses to higher temperatures.Overall, our findings highlight how tree growth can be interactively determined by glo-bal‐change drivers, and how these growth responses might be modulated by past for-est management. By showing future growth changes for scenarios of environmentalchange, we stress the importance of considering multiple drivers, including past man-agement and their interactions, when predicting tree growth. KW - basal area increment KW - climate change KW - Fagus KW - Fraxinus KW - historical ecology KW - nitrogen deposition KW - Quercus KW - tree-ring analysis Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14493 SN - 1354-1013 SN - 1365-2486 VL - 25 IS - 1 SP - 201 EP - 217 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinrichs, Steffi A1 - Ammer, Christian A1 - Mund, Martina A1 - Boch, Steffen A1 - Budde, Sabine A1 - Fischer, Markus A1 - Mueller, Joerg A1 - Schoening, Ingo A1 - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef A1 - Schmidt, Wolfgang A1 - Weckesser, Martin A1 - Schall, Peter T1 - Landscape-Scale Mixtures of Tree Species are More Effective than Stand-Scale Mixtures for Biodiversity of Vascular Plants, Bryophytes and Lichens JF - Forests N2 - Tree species diversity can positively affect the multifunctionality of forests. This is why conifer monocultures of Scots pine and Norway spruce, widely promoted in Central Europe since the 18th and 19th century, are currently converted into mixed stands with naturally dominant European beech. Biodiversity is expected to benefit from these mixtures compared to pure conifer stands due to increased abiotic and biotic resource heterogeneity. Evidence for this assumption is, however, largely lacking. Here, we investigated the diversity of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens at the plot (alpha diversity) and at the landscape (gamma diversity) level in pure and mixed stands of European beech and conifer species (Scots pine, Norway spruce, Douglas fir) in four regions in Germany. We aimed to identify compositions of pure and mixed stands in a hypothetical forest landscape that can optimize gamma diversity of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens within regions. Results show that gamma diversity of the investigated groups is highest when a landscape comprises different pure stands rather than tree species mixtures at the stand scale. Species mainly associated with conifers rely on light regimes that are only provided in pure conifer forests, whereas mixtures of beech and conifers are more similar to beech stands. Combining pure beech and pure conifer stands at the landscape scale can increase landscape level biodiversity and conserve species assemblages of both stand types, while landscapes solely composed of stand scale tree species mixtures could lead to a biodiversity reduction of a combination of investigated groups of 7 up to 20%. KW - Fagus sylvatica KW - Pinus sylvestris KW - Picea abies KW - Pseudotsuga menziesii KW - forest management KW - tree species diversity KW - forest conversion KW - gamma diversity KW - landscape scale KW - Biodiversity Exploratories Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/f10010073 SN - 1999-4907 VL - 10 IS - 1 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maes, Sybryn L. A1 - Blondeel, Haben A1 - Perring, Michael P. A1 - Depauw, Leen A1 - Brumelis, Guntis A1 - Brunet, Jörg A1 - Decocq, Guillaume A1 - den Ouden, Jan A1 - Haerdtle, Werner A1 - Hedl, Radim A1 - Heinken, Thilo A1 - Heinrichs, Steffi A1 - Jaroszewicz, Bogdan A1 - Kirby, Keith J. A1 - Kopecky, Martin A1 - Malis, Frantisek A1 - Wulf, Monika A1 - Verheyen, Kris T1 - Litter quality, land-use history, and nitrogen deposition effects on topsoil conditions across European temperate deciduous forests JF - Forest ecology and management N2 - Topsoil conditions in temperate forests are influenced by several soil-forming factors, such as canopy composition (e.g. through litter quality), land-use history, atmospheric deposition, and the parent material. Many studies have evaluated the effects of single factors on physicochemical topsoil conditions, but few have assessed the simultaneous effects of multiple drivers. Here, we evaluate the combined effects of litter quality, land-use history (past land cover as well as past forest management), and atmospheric deposition on several physicochemical topsoil conditions of European temperate deciduous forest soils: bulk density, proportion of exchangeable base cations, carbon/nitrogen-ratio (C/N), litter mass, bio-available and total phosphorus, pH(KCI)and soil organic matter. We collected mineral soil and litter layer samples, and measured site characteristics for 190 20 x 20 m European mixed forest plots across gradients of litter quality (derived from the canopy species composition) and atmospheric deposition, and for different categories of past land cover and past forest management. We accounted for the effects of parent material on topsoil conditions by clustering our plots into three soil type groups based on texture and carbonate concentration. We found that litter quality was a stronger driver of topsoil conditions compared to land-use history or atmospheric deposition, while the soil type also affected several topsoil conditions here. Plots with higher litter quality had soils with a higher proportion of exchangeable base cations, and total phosphorus, and lower C/N-ratios and litter mass. Furthermore, the observed litter quality effects on the topsoil were independent from the regional nitrogen deposition or the soil type, although the soil type likely (co)-determined canopy composition and thus litter quality to some extent in the investigated plots. Litter quality effects on topsoil phosphorus concentrations did interact with past land cover, highlighting the need to consider land-use history when evaluating canopy effects on soil conditions. We conclude that forest managers can use the canopy composition as an important tool for influencing topsoil conditions, although soil type remains an important factor to consider. KW - Soil fertility KW - Ancient forest KW - Post-agricultural forest KW - Coppice KW - High forest KW - pH KW - Phosphorus KW - Base cations KW - Nutrient cycling KW - Decomposition Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2018.10.056 SN - 0378-1127 SN - 1872-7042 VL - 433 SP - 405 EP - 418 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -