New insights into the consequences of post-windthrow salvage logging revealed by functional structure of saproxylic beetles assemblages.

ABSTRACT: Windstorms, bark beetle outbreaks and fires are important natural disturbances in coniferous forests worldwide. Wind-thrown trees promote biodiversity and restoration within production forests, but also cause large economic losses due to bark beetle infestation and accelerated fungal decomposition. Such damaged trees are often removed by salvage logging, which leads to decreased biodiversity and thus increasingly evokes discussions between economists and ecologists about appropriate strategies. To reveal the reasons behind species loss after salvage logging, we used a functional approach based on four habitat-related ecological traits and focused on saproxylic beetles. We predicted that salvage logging would decrease functional diversity (measured as effect sizes of mean pairwise distances

SUBMITTER: Thorn S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4106782 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature