Saproxylic beetle assemblages in recently dead Scots pines: How traits modulate species’ response to forest management?

Abstract

Boreal forests have been intensively managed, influencing the spatiotemporal occurrence of dead wood, and leading to changes in saproxylic species assemblages. Some particular traits, such as habitat specialization, can be expected to make species sensitive to alterations in the amount, dynamics and heterogeneity of dead-wood habitats. We compared the saproxylic beetle assemblages of 320 dead standing Scots pines within 52 pine forest stands in three regions in Finland and Russia with contrasting forest-use history. We used the joint species distribution model of Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (HMSC) to analyze how the beetle communities respond to alteration of forest structure. We applied scenario simulations to examine relationships between selected species traits and environmental gradients. Our results show that tree-level characteristics were the most important variables shaping the community composition in dead standing pines, but that also the characteristics of the forest stand as well as the larger-scale landscape context affected assemblage composition. Most importantly, managed forest stands and managed forest landscapes had lost species that are specialized in their resource use. The generalist species thriving in managed forest stands and managed forest landscapes were able to utilize dead wood of small diameter and man-made dead wood types, such as cut stumps and logging residues. We conclude that forest management not only reduces the amount of resources for saproxylic beetles locally, but has also landscape-level effects so that the most vulnerable species with specialized resource use and short-lived substrates can be lost also from remnant natural forest patches embedded in managed landscapes.