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Most European forests are used for timber production. Given the limited extent of unmanaged (and especially primary) forests, it is essential to include commercial forests in the conservation of forest biodiversity. In order to develop ecologically sustainable forest management practices, it is important to understand the management impacts on forest-dwelling organisms. Experiments allow testing the effects of alternative management strategies, and monitoring of multiple taxa informs us on the response range across forest-dwelling organisms. To provide a representative picture of the currently available information, metadata on 28 multi-taxa forest management experiments were collected from 14 European countries. We demonstrate the potential of compiling these experiments in a single network to upscale results from the local to continental level and indicate directions for future research. Among the different forest types, temperate deciduous beech and oak-dominated forests are the best represented in the multi-taxa management experiments. Of all the experimental treatments, innovative ways of traditional management techniques (e.g., gap cutting and thinning) and conservation-oriented interventions (e.g., microhabitat enrichment) provide the best opportunity for large-scale analyses. Regarding the organism groups, woody regeneration, herbs, fungi, beetles, bryophytes, birds and lichens offer the largest potential for addressing management–biodiversity relationships at the European level. We identified knowledge gaps regarding boreal, hemiboreal and broadleaved evergreen forests, the treatments of large herbivore exclusion, prescribed burning and forest floor or water manipulations, and the monitoring of soil-dwelling organisms and some vertebrate classes, e.g., amphibians, reptiles and mammals. To improve multi-site comparisons, design of future experiments should be fitted to the set-up of the ongoing projects and standardised biodiversity sampling is suggested. However, the network described here opens the way to learn lessons on the impact on forest biodiversity of different management techniques at the continental level, and thus, supports biodiversity conservation in managed forests.

In response to the degradation of forest ecosystems, their habitats and the loss of species, many formal conservation policies and voluntary forest conservation tools have been proposed and implemented. The woodland key habitat (WKH) is one such initiative that aims to protect biodiversity. This generally involves two key actions: (i) the creation of policy (conservation action) and (ii) the consequences of the policy or initiative in the field. However, the final step of measuring their success in the field is often missing. The aim of this study is to assess the contribution of the WKH initiative to conserve biodiversity in Lithuania. We compared the changes in spatial distribution, species assemblages and richness within the WKH network between 2005 and 2017. Results showed that the spatial distribution of WKHs decreased in number and by area after 12 years. However, species occurrence, abundance and richness of the WHK network generally increased. In conclusion, we found the WKH initiative has contributed to the conservation of forest habitats and biodiversity in Lithuania. However, the future of the WKH network is uncertain due to the current voluntary system, lack of support and funding.

The study compared the reaction of different organism groups to nitrogen pollution near a nitrogen factory. Investigations were conducted in an area affected by a nitrogen fertilizer factory (JSC Achema), in central Lithuania. The study was performed in eight permanent plots established for monitoring purposes at different distances (from 2 to 20 km) from the factory, mainly in a prevailing northeast wind direction. The vascular plants, bryophytes and fungi, including lichens, were recorded. The species number of the different organism groups reacted differently to the distance from the factory. The species number of lichens and fungi increased with increasing distance from the nitrogen factory. The number of species of vascular plants was highest near the factory. The number of bryophytes did not correlate with the distance from the factory. Nitrophilic species, Chelidonium majus, Rubus idaeus, Sambucus rasemosa, and Impatiens parviflora, were most common, especially near the factory. A majority of the macrolichens, including epixylic species, reacted extremely negatively to NO2 and NH3, and species richness and abundance increased significantly farther from the air pollution source. Fungi did not react significantly to higher NH3 or NO2 concentrations in the air, and the distance from the factory was not an important variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]