One to rule them all? Assessing performance of Forest Europe´s biodiversity indicators against multitaxonomic data

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F26733544%3A_____%2F24%3AN0000002" target="_blank" >RIV/26733544:_____/24:N0000002 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.12.579875v1" target="_blank" >https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.12.579875v1</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110874" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110874</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

One to rule them all? Assessing performance of Forest Europe´s biodiversity indicators against multitaxonomic data

Original language description

Most broad-scale forest biodiversity indicators are based on data from national forest inventories and are used to assess the state of biodiversity through several regional initiatives and reporting. Although valuable, these indicators are essentially indirect and evaluate habitat quantity and quality rather than biodiversity per se. Besides, most of these indicators are applicable at regional or national scales, while their use at a more local level is difficult. Therefore, their link to biodiversity may be weak, which decreases their usefulness for decision-making. For several decades, Forest Europe indicators assessed the state of European forests, in particular its biodiversity. However, no extensive study has been conducted to date to assess the performance of these indicators against multitaxonomic data. We hypothesized that – as implied by the reporting process – no single biodiversity indicator from Forest Europe can represent overall forest biodiversity, but that several – eventually combined – indicators would reflect habitat quality for at least some taxa in a comprehensive way. We tested the set of indicators proposed by Forest Europe against the species richness of six taxonomic and functional groups (tracheophytes, epixylic and epiphytic bryophytes, birds, saproxylic beetles, saproxylic non-lichenized fungi and epixylic and epiphytic lichenized fungi) across several hundreds of plots over Europe. We showed that, while some indicators perform relatively well across groups (e.g. deadwood volume), no single indicator represented all biodiversity at once, and that a combination of several indicators performed better. Surprisingly, some indicators showed weak links with the biodiversity of the six taxonomic and functional groups. Forest Europe indicators were chosen for their availability and ease of understanding for most people. However, our analyses showed that there are still gaps in the monitoring framework, and that surveying certain taxa along with stand structure is necessary to support policymaking and tackle forest biodiversity loss at the large scale.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10511 - Environmental sciences (social aspects to be 5.7)

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Biological Conservation

ISSN

0006-3207

e-ISSN

0006-3207

Volume of the periodical

300

Issue of the periodical within the volume

110874

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

31

Pages from-to

1-31

UT code for WoS article

001398108000001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85209659248