Abstract
Conservation of temperate forest biodiversity has historically focused on natural old‐growth. Less than 3% of the world's temperate forests remain unmodified by humans, however, and much of temperate‐forest biodiversity is held in the predominating planted and secondary forests. Japan provides a widely applicable model for examining how to maximize biodiversity in managed temperate forests, because of its richness of forestry research generated from its vast forest area, albeit largely in Japanese, and the wide practice of its dominant management interventions across the northern temperate zone. Management for plantations includes thinning, extended rotation cycles and clear‐cutting. For secondary forests regenerating from past clearance, traditional management varies in its intensities, from clear‐cutting as coppices to small‐scale understory clearance. Here we provide a first synthesis of published research on biodiversity in planted and secondary forests of Japan, relevant to management of these types of forest in northern temperate regions. Systematic review and meta‐analyses of papers published in English and Japanese quantified management impacts on species richness and abundance of several taxa, in relation to moderator variables including stand age and management intensity. Plantation thinning substantially increases the richness and abundance of several taxa. Effect sizes decline with time since thinning for the abundance of regenerating saplings and seedlings, necessitating repeated thinning treatments every 6 years to sustain this positive effect. Taxonomic groups exhibit variable relationships with stand age in both planted and secondary forests, indicating a need to include both young and old forest stands in managed forest mosaics. We find an insufficient evidence base is available to allow for a meaningful synthesis of low‐intensity management effects in historically managed secondary forests, with studies varying widely in scale and reported outcomes. We outline an agenda for the research community to achieve a systematic evaluation of scale‐dependent effects of traditional forest management on biodiversity.
Highlights
Natural old-growth forests are considered irreplaceable biodiversity resources because of their long continuity and high structural diversity (e.g., Gibson et al, 2011)
By synthesizing the Japanese forestry literature published in English and Japanese, we aim to provide practicable recommendations to inform policymaking in Japan, which will be relevant to managed forests across the northern temperate zone, because of the wide practice of the management interventions we synthesize
Quantitative syntheses, which allow the testing of relationships between individual study outcomes and their characteristics, have demonstrated variable and nonlinear responses amongst taxa to important management covariates
Summary
Natural old-growth forests are considered irreplaceable biodiversity resources because of their long continuity and high structural diversity (e.g., Gibson et al, 2011) Whilst their strict protection represents a conservation priority in the face of forest loss and degradation worldwide, the biodiversity potential of disturbed planted and secondary forests is. Typically measure the biodiversity value of disturbed forests by their comparison to natural, old-growth forests as a reference This conventional setup yields inferences of limited practicable value to managers and conservationists in temperate nations where little old-growth remains, and has resulted in the exclusion of much research from panglobal syntheses (Spake & Doncaster, 2017). We synthesize and quantitatively assess the effects on biodiversity of coniferous and broadleaved forest management practices in Japan which are widely promoted to conserve biodiversity across the northern temperate zone. By synthesizing the Japanese forestry literature published in English and Japanese, we aim to provide practicable recommendations to inform policymaking in Japan, which will be relevant to managed forests across the northern temperate zone, because of the wide practice of the management interventions we synthesize
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