Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Forests and CO (Co-Benefits and Conflicts between CO2 sequestration and biodiversity conservation in European Forests)

Teaser

Forests play a major role in the global carbon cycle, contain a substantial proportion of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, and are valued for the services they provide to society. Since a large body of evidence now suggests biodiversity loss affects the functioning of...

Summary

Forests play a major role in the global carbon cycle, contain a substantial proportion of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, and are valued for the services they provide to society. Since a large body of evidence now suggests biodiversity loss affects the functioning of ecosystems, the alarmingly high rate of biodiversity loss is worrisome considering emerging close links between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human well-being.

High species diversity is often associated with high productivity and ecosystem service (ES) provisioning, including carbon storage and sequestration. However, our ability to understand the consequences of biodiversity loss on the supply of a portfolio of multiple ES is still incomplete. Protecting forests and managing them sustainably is therefore important both to preserve biodiversity, and the services it underpins.

Managing forests for multiple objectives requires a thorough scientific understanding of the trade-offs and synergies between the multiple contributions of forests to human wellbeing. Testing how carbon and biodiversity can be jointly maintained or enriched in forest landscapes is particularly important, since it would allow forest-management strategies that jointly address climate change mitigation and biodiversity loss. Primary forests, i.e. naturally regenerated forests of native species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed, are invaluable study systems for understanding the baselines of the delivery of ecosystem services under unmanaged conditions, including carbon stocks and sequestration, and possible trade-offs between ecosystem services and biodiversity.

The overarching goal of FORESTS and CO is to assess whether measures designed to protect forest biodiversity and to increase carbon stocks are mutually consistent or conflicting in European forests. Using primary forests to estimate baselines for carbon storage and biodiversity conservation potential for different forest types, the aim of FORESTS and CO is to model the relationships between carbon storage and biodiversity, and assess potential co-benefits or conflicts between them. We first built a network of forest researchers to gather existing data on primary forests in Europe, and create the first map of their distribution. We then used plot-level data to model the relationship between forest biodiversity and carbon storage in managed forests, since most forests in Europe are managed, and forest biodiversity therefore critically depends on these forests.

Work performed

In the period Oct 2015 – Sep 2017, we collected and analyzed data to respond to the research questions. We identified, gathered, harmonized and analyzed data on the distribution of primary forests coming from three source: 1. a literature review of all the studies published between January 2000 and January 2017; 2. Existing maps and datasets of primary forest distribution; and 3. the establishment of an informal network of forest researchers and experts to share existing data on primary forests in a common repository. We integrated and harmonized all data collected into a geodatabase of primary forests, reporting for each forest patch some basic description including name, location, naturalness level, extent, and dominant tree species. Finally, we used all the data collected to produce the first map of primary forests of Europe. We used this map to understand: 1. the pattern of current distribution of primary forests across Europe, biogeographical regions, forest types and protection levels; 2. the biophysical, socio-economic and historical land-use factors that determine the extant pattern of primary forests; and 3. the areas in Europe with the highest likelihood of finding previously unmapped primary forests.
Through the informal network previously established, we assembled a broad dataset of biodiversity data spreading across 3 European countries, 21 study areas and 352 sampling plots. Biodiversity data included six taxonomical groups: beetles, birds, bryophytes, fungi, lichens and plants. We used these data to test three hypotheses: 1. forests storing greater amounts of aboveground woody carbon host higher overall biodiversity; 2. the existence of thresholds in forest aboveground carbon abovebelow which a concomitant, substantial change in species composition can be observed; 3. individual species respond differently to increasing aboveground carbon levels. Our results provided no evidence that forests storing higher aboveground carbon host an overall higher number of species across all the six taxonomical groups we considered. Above specific aboveground carbon levels species assemblages changed markedly, with some species declining, and other increasing in occurrence. We did not find evidence of the existence of consistently synchronous community change points across taxa and forest types. We conclude that maximizing the amount of carbon stored in a forest may not have beneficial effects on all the facets of biodiversity, although manipulating the amount of carbon stored in a forest within specific ranges may be compatible with biodiversity conservation, when the priority is to favour specific subset of species.
Scientific papers describing the work in full detail are in preparation. Once published, a synthesis of these papers for the general public will also be created through the project\'s blog: http://forestsandco.wordpress.com/.

Final results

This action contributed in four major ways to the scientific fields of forest ecology, conservation science, and sustainability science. First, although the biodiversity/carbon relationship has been researched intensely recently, we extended the focus from tree diversity, to other plant and animal groups that may have important direct or cascading effects on carbon storage. Second, we tested whether biodiversity/carbon co-benefits exist across a broad geographical scale, and found great context-dependent variation. Third, we generated the first European-scale map of primary forest remnants and provided first estimates of their extent and protection status, as well as the underlying drivers leading to the persistence of these remnants in Europe’s human-dominated forest landscapes. Finally, as this map represents the most comprehensive dataset on known primary forests in Europe currently available, it can be used to study baselines on the relationship between biodiversity and carbon storage in unmanaged, primary forests. The map has already attracted great consideration from governmental agencies (e.g., European Environmental Agency), supranational institutions (UNEP, Secretariat of the Carpathians Convention) and NGOs (WWF, Wild Europe). Together with these actors, we are now developing plans to maximize the impact of this action on the conservation and societal challenges being currently faced in Europe. For instance, prioritizing regions and forest types for driving conservation (e.g. establishment of new protected areas) or restoration efforts, i.e. areas where land-use pressure is relatively low and the opportunity-costs of preserving or restoring primary forests and associated ecosystem processes and biodiversity is lower than elsewhere.

Website & more info

More info: http://forestsandco.wordpress.com/.