0000000001191637
AUTHOR
Walter Mattioli
One taxon does not fit all: Herb-layer diversity and stand structural complexity are weak predictors of biodiversity in Fagus sylvatica forests
Abstract Since adequate information on the distribution of biodiversity is hardly achievable, biodiversity indicators are necessary to support the management of ecosystems. These surrogates assume that either some habitat features, or the biodiversity patterns observed in a well-known taxon, can be used as a proxy of the diversity of one or more target taxa. Nevertheless, at least for certain taxa, the validity of this assumption has not yet been sufficiently demonstrated. We investigated the effectiveness of both a habitat- and a taxa-based surrogate in six European beech forests in the Apennines. Particularly, we tested: (1) whether the stand structural complexity and the herb-layer speci…
A synthesis of multi-taxa management experiments to guide forest biodiversity conservation in Europe
Most European forests are used for timber production. Given the limited extent of unmanaged (and especially primary) forests, it is essential to include commercial forests in the conservation of forest biodiversity. In order to develop ecologically sustainable forest management practices, it is important to understand the management impacts on forest-dwelling organisms. Experiments allow testing the effects of alternative management strategies, and monitoring of multiple taxa informs us on the response range across forest-dwelling organisms. To provide a representative picture of the currently available information, metadata on 28 multi-taxa forest management experiments were collected from…