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Currently the paradigm of sustainable forest management is extended to a broad range of ecological, economic, and social forest functions and services. In particular, biodiversity becomes a more and more important issue in the forest planning processes. However, its quantification, monitoring and assessment still remain complex and difficult although data from regional or national forest inventories might contribute valuable information for quantifying biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate how such data can be tapped and aggregated to different spatial and temporal scales for deriving indicators to support biodiversity assessment and monitoring. By focusing on tree species and structural related indices, our method allows the evaluation of spatial and temporal variation of diversity indicators by using inventory data. We present a practice-oriented approach on how to integrate such indicators into forest planning processes and thereby extend the paradigm of sustainability of forest management. We exemplify our approach by inventory data from the Bavarian State Forest Enterprise to show how inventory data can be utilised to (i) assess biodiversity aspects from stand to landscape scales and (ii) integrate such information into forest management at different spatial and temporal scales. Finally, we discuss how this information extracted from forest inventories may contribute to a more generalised assessment, monitoring and planning of biodiversity in managed forest ecosystems.

For forest sustainability and vulnerability assessment, the landscape scale is considered to be more and more relevant as the stand level approaches its known limitations. This review, which describes the main forest landscape simulation tools used in the 20 European case studies of the European project “Future-oriented integrated management of European forest landscapes” (INTEGRAL), gives an update on existing decision support tools to run landscape simulation from Mediterranean to boreal ecosystems. The main growth models and software available in Europe are described, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches are discussed. Trades-offs between input efforts and output are illustrated. Recommendations for the selection of a forest landscape simulator are given. The paper concludes by describing the need to have tools that are able to cope with climate change and the need to build more robust indicators for assessment of forest landscape sustainability and vulnerability. The INTEGRAL project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 282887. http://www. integral-project.eu/. Moreover, financial support by the Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the 7th Framework Programme of the EC under the Trees4Future project (No. 284181) for conducting the research is gratefully acknowledged. This research has also received funding from the European Union H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 691149 (SuFoRun). Researcher Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo was supported by a “Ramon y Cajal” research contract from the MINECO (Ref. RYC-2013-14262) and has received funding from CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. This paper could be achieved thanks to support of EFIATLANTIC donors: Conseil regional d’Aquitaine, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la forêt.

While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivity info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos medius) is the bird species which Germany has the greatest global responsibility to protect. It is an umbrella species for the entire assemblage of animals associated with mature broadleaved trees, especially oak. Even though well studied in small to medium scale stands, the validity of habitat suitability analysis for this species in larger forests has not previously been proved. Aim of this study was to test suitability of permanent forest inventory plots for modelling its distribution in a 17,000 ha forest landscape and to derive habitat threshold values as a basis for formulating management guidelines. Based on 150 randomly selected 12.5 ha plots we identified mean age and basal area of oaks as the most important habitat factors using a backward selection logistic model. Internal validation showed an AUC of 0.89 and a R N 2 of 0.58. Determination of thresholds using maximally selected rank statistics found higher probability of occurrence in stands with a mean age >95 years. Above that age the probability increased again in stands with more than 6.4 m2 basal area oak/ha. Our results show that widely available forest inventory data can serve as a valuable basis for monitoring the Middle Spotted Woodpecker, either within the framework of the Natura 2000 Network, or more generally in integrated forest management with the aim of providing suitable habitats for the entire assemblage of species on old deciduous trees, especially oak.