Towards an effective in-situ biodiversity assessment in European forests

• The current information on forest multi-taxon biodiversity is deficient for most taxa • Existing data may help define an effective monitoring network for European forest • Sampling effort to assess species diversity varies across taxa and forest types • Sampling effort varies with the level of species diversity • Taxa may require different sampling efforts across species richness and composition Assessing multi-taxon biodiversity is crucial to understand forests’ response to environmental changes and to inform management strategies. In Europe, forest biodiversity monitoring is still scattered and heterogeneous, although a long-term monitoring network has long been advocated. Given the monitoring aims reported in various EU policies, this network should be accurately designed also through the estimation of its sampling effort, here limited to the number of sampling plots and sites. We used a novel database of forest multi-taxon biodiversity for a pilot study to: estimate the minimum sampling effort needed to assess variation in species richness and composition; compare these estimates with the efforts invested in the pilot database; discuss estimates’ differences across taxonomic groups and forest categories. We focused on six taxonomic groups (vascular plants, birds, epiphytic lichens and bryophytes, wood-inhabiting fungi and saproxylic beetles) across six forest categories. Based on 6,165 plots at 2,084 different locations across Europe, we benchmarked the effort to achieve: a complete species richness estimate through interpolation/extrapolation curves, and a precise evaluation of species composition variation through multivariate standard error. Our estimates differed widely, especially among taxonomic groups. For species richness, estimates range from 3 to 147 plots per site across 3 to 29 sites per forest category, with birds and epiphytic bryophytes requiring the least effort. For species composition, estimates range from 5 to over 25 plots per site across 5 to 20 sites per forest category, with saproxylic beetles, vascular plants, and fungi displaying the highest estimates. The taxonomic groups requiring an effort comparable to existing data were the least diverse, all the others need greater efforts, either for species richness (e.g., saproxylic beetles), or species composition (e.g., vascular plants), or both (e.g., wood-inhabiting fungi). An effective monitoring network of European forests’ biodiversity should thoroughly account for these benchmarks and for their taxon-dependency.

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Publication Details

Journal
Basic and Applied Ecology
Published
2025-03-05
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2025.03.003
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
3.34

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article

Towards an effective in-situ biodiversity assessment in European forests

Sabina Burrascano, Steffen Boch, Jan Hošek, Peter Schall et al.
2 citations
Basic and Applied Ecology
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
3.34
article

Towards an effective in-situ biodiversity assessment in European forests

Sabina Burrascano, Steffen Boch, Jan Hošek, Peter Schall, Iker Mijangos, Gergely Kutszegi, Lucas Chojnacki, Elena Haeler, Francesco Chianucci, Markus Fischer, Yoan Paillet, Flóra Tinya, Péter Ódor, Kris Vandekerkhove, Jacob Heilmann‐Clausen, Giovanni Trentanovi, Mariana Ujházyová, Ferenc Samu, Thibault Lachat, Daniel Kozák, Tommaso Sitzia, Sebastian Kepfer‐Rojas, Lorenzo Balducci, Miroslav Svoboda, Jeňýk Hofmeister, Sonia Ravera, Pallieter De Smedt, Martin Mikoláš, Rafael Barreto de Andrade
article en
2 citations

Abstract

• The current information on forest multi-taxon biodiversity is deficient for most taxa • Existing data may help define an effective monitoring network for European forest • Sampling effort to assess species diversity varies across taxa and forest types • Sampling effort varies with the level of species diversity • Taxa may require different sampling efforts across species richness and composition Assessing multi-taxon biodiversity is crucial to understand forests’ response to environmental changes and to inform management strategies. In Europe, forest biodiversity monitoring is still scattered and heterogeneous, although a long-term monitoring network has long been advocated. Given the monitoring aims reported in various EU policies, this network should be accurately designed also through the estimation of its sampling effort, here limited to the number of sampling plots and sites. We used a novel database of forest multi-taxon biodiversity for a pilot study to: estimate the minimum sampling effort needed to assess variation in species richness and composition; compare these estimates with the efforts invested in the pilot database; discuss estimates’ differences across taxonomic groups and forest categories. We focused on six taxonomic groups (vascular plants, birds, epiphytic lichens and bryophytes, wood-inhabiting fungi and saproxylic beetles) across six forest categories. Based on 6,165 plots at 2,084 different locations across Europe, we benchmarked the effort to achieve: a complete species richness estimate through interpolation/extrapolation curves, and a precise evaluation of species composition variation through multivariate standard error. Our estimates differed widely, especially among taxonomic groups. For species richness, estimates range from 3 to 147 plots per site across 3 to 29 sites per forest category, with birds and epiphytic bryophytes requiring the least effort. For species composition, estimates range from 5 to over 25 plots per site across 5 to 20 sites per forest category, with saproxylic beetles, vascular plants, and fungi displaying the highest estimates. The taxonomic groups requiring an effort comparable to existing data were the least diverse, all the others need greater efforts, either for species richness (e.g., saproxylic beetles), or species composition (e.g., vascular plants), or both (e.g., wood-inhabiting fungi). An effective monitoring network of European forests’ biodiversity should thoroughly account for these benchmarks and for their taxon-dependency.

Basic and Applied EcologyVol. 84
University of Bern (CH), University of Copenhagen (DK), University of the Basque Country (ES), Copenhagen Business School (DK), Research Institute for Nature and Forest (BE), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZ), Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH), Ghent University (BE), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés (FR), Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), Czech Academy of Sciences, Global Change Research Institute (CZ), Forestry Research Centre (IT), University of Veterinary Medicine (HU), HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research (HU), Austrian Research Centre for Forests (AT), Plant Protection Institute (HU), University of Maryland, College Park (US), Sapienza University of Rome (IT), Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
European Cooperation in Science and Technology, Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Life in Land
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies
3.34
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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