Abstract
Forests managed for timber have an important role to play in conserving global biodiversity. We evaluated the most common timber production systems worldwide in terms of their impact on local species richness by conducting a categorical meta-analysis. We reviewed 287 published studies containing 1008 comparisons of species richness in managed and unmanaged forests and derived management, taxon, and continent specific effect sizes. We show that in terms of local species richness loss, forest management types can be ranked, from best to worse, as follows: selection and retention systems, reduced impact logging, conventional selective logging, clear-cutting, agroforestry, timber plantations, fuelwood plantations. Next, we calculated the economic profitability in terms of the net present value of timber harvesting from 10 hypothetical wood-producing Forest Management Units (FMU) from around the globe. The ranking of management types is altered when the species loss per unit profit generated from the FMU is considered. This is due to differences in yield, timber species prices, rotation cycle length and production costs. We thus conclude that it would be erroneous to dismiss or prioritize timber production regimes, based solely on their ranking of alpha diversity impacts.
Highlights
With increasingly globalized trade, there is a growing choice of timber products from various tropical and temperate tree species[6]
Note that we distinguish selection systems in temperate and boreal regions from selective logging, primarily practiced in the tropics, because we argue that selection systems are effectively an attempt towards sustainable forest management, whereas selective logging is typically the default option of timber harvest in the species-diverse tropics, as only certain timber species are of commercial interest
Out of the other three timber producing management types, timber plantations had the highest impact, followed by clear-cutting (22% reduction), and conventional selective logging (13% reduction, Fig. 1)
Summary
There is a growing choice of timber products from various tropical and temperate tree species[6]. Extracting timber or other products changes the tree age structure, composition of tree species and vertical stratification, thereby affecting local temperature, light, moisture, soil, and litter conditions. This results in changes or complete removal of microhabitats (such as dead wood, cavities, root plates or mature trees) that host forest biodiversity[11]. Some types of management may have a larger influence on forest species than others, due to differences in habitat structure and continuity, or microclimatic conditions after the harvest. Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) is an example of harvesting technique at the other end of the timber production management spectrum. We have striven to achieve a good balance between data availability and information loss from excessive generalization
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