Effects of forest management on carabid beetles in Belgium: implications for biodiversity conservation

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We sampled the carabid beetles in 22 forests managed by six different silvicultural systems, defined by treatment and tree species composition: even-aged conifer, even-aged beech, even-aged oak, uneven-aged conifer, uneven-aged beech and group mixed (beech + conifer). In each of these forests, we placed pitfall traps in young, medium-aged and mature stands (3 stages). We evaluated the effect of treatment, tree species composition, silvicultural system, stage and habitat type (silvicultural system + stage) on indicators of community conservation value and ecological structure. The species composition and the ecological structure of carabid beetles of the managed stands were then compared to that of nine unmanaged stands (without tree exploitation). In the managed forests, species richness was highest in large young stands (3–10 years old) and in forests managed by even-aged systems (with large clear-cuts), mainly due to eurytopic and opportunist carabid species with high dispersal abilities. Oak and beech, uneven-aged, and mature stands were mainly inhabited by typical forest species, and even-aged conifer stands mainly by ubiquitous species. Several typical forest species recorded in unmanaged stands were lacking from the managed forests. Large scale clear-cutting allows open-habitat species to enter the forest, which increases the species richness at a landscape level but can disfavour typical forest species by competition. Long rotations should be implemented and more areas left unmanaged in Belgium, in order to help typical forest species to re-colonise managed forests.