Impact of Forest Management on Species Richness: Global Meta-Analysis and Economic Trade-Offs.

ABSTRACT: Forests managed for timber have an important role to play in conserving global biodiversity. We evaluated the most common timber production systems worldwide in terms of their impact on local species richness by conducting a categorical meta-analysis. We reviewed 287 published studies containing 1008 comparisons of species richness in managed and unmanaged forests and derived management, taxon, and continent specific effect sizes. We show that in terms of local species richness loss, forest management types can be ranked, from best to worse, as follows: selection and retention systems, reduced impact logging, conventional selective logging, clear-cutting, agroforestry, timber plantations, fuelwood plantations. Next, we calculated the economic profitability in terms of the net present value

SUBMITTER: Chaudhary A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4819217 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature