Natural disturbance impacts on trade-offs and co-benefits of forest biodiversity and carbon

With accelerating environmental change, understanding forest disturbance impacts on trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon dynamics is of high socio-economic importance. Most studies, however, have assessed immediate or short-term effects of disturbance, while long-term impacts remain poorly und...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2021-10, Vol.288 (1961), p.20211631
Main Authors: Mikoláš, Martin, Svitok, Marek, Bače, Radek, Meigs, Garrett W, Keeton, William S, Keith, Heather, Buechling, Arne, Trotsiuk, Volodymyr, Kozák, Daniel, Bollmann, Kurt, Begovič, Krešimir, Čada, Vojtěch, Chaskovskyy, Oleh, Ralhan, Dheeraj, Dušátko, Martin, Ferenčík, Matej, Frankovič, Michal, Gloor, Rhiannon, Hofmeister, Jeňýk, Janda, Pavel, Kameniar, Ondrej, Lábusová, Jana, Majdanová, Linda, Nagel, Thomas A, Pavlin, Jakob, Pettit, Joseph L, Rodrigo, Ruffy, Roibu, Catalin-Constantin, Rydval, Miloš, Sabatini, Francesco M, Schurman, Jonathan, Synek, Michal, Vostarek, Ondřej, Zemlerová, Veronika, Svoboda, Miroslav
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Carbon - analysis
Carbon Sequestration
Climate Change
Conservation of Natural Resources
Forests
Global Change and Conservation
Trees
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:With accelerating environmental change, understanding forest disturbance impacts on trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon dynamics is of high socio-economic importance. Most studies, however, have assessed immediate or short-term effects of disturbance, while long-term impacts remain poorly understood. Using a tree-ring-based approach, we analysed the effect of 250 years of disturbances on present-day biodiversity indicators and carbon dynamics in primary forests. Disturbance legacies spanning centuries shaped contemporary forest co-benefits and trade-offs, with contrasting, local-scale effects. Disturbances enhanced carbon sequestration, reaching maximum rates within a comparatively narrow post-disturbance window (up to 50 years). Concurrently, disturbance diminished aboveground carbon storage, which gradually returned to peak levels over centuries. Temporal patterns in biodiversity potential were bimodal; the first maximum coincided with the short-term post-disturbance carbon sequestration peak, and the second occurred during periods of maximum carbon storage in complex old-growth forest. Despite fluctuating local-scale trade-offs, forest biodiversity and carbon storage remained stable across the broader study region, and our data support a positive relationship between carbon stocks and biodiversity potential. These findings underscore the interdependencies of forest processes, and highlight the necessity of large-scale conservation programmes to effectively promote both biodiversity and long-term carbon storage, particularly given the accelerating global biodiversity and climate crises.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2021.1631