How much is enough – estimating set-aside areas in naturally disturbed forests

The amount of naturally disturbed forests in the Northern Hemisphere has increased as a consequence of global change. Natural disturbances, such as wildfires, windstorms and insect outbreaks affect billions of trees and cause significant economic losses. Post-disturbance logging is a common practice globally to 'salvage' some of these economic returns. However, salvage logging can have negative effects on ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Those taxa, which depend on deadwood (i.e. saproxylic), are most affected. Hence, scientists increasingly encourage the retention of disturbance-affected areas as a main tool to omit the negative effects of salvage logging on biodiversity. However, t…