Natural disturbance impacts on trade-offs and co-benefits of forest biodiversity and carbon
Martin Mikoláš, Marek Svitok, Radek Bače, Garrett W. Meigs, William S. Keeton, Heather Keith, Arne Buechling, Volodymyr Trotsiuk, Daniel Kozák, Kurt Bollmann, Krešimír Begović, Vojtěch Čada, Oleh Chaskovskyy, Dheeraj Ralhan, Martin Dušátko, Matěj Ferenčík, Michal Frankovič, Rhiannon Gloor, Jeňýk Hofmeister, Pavel Janda, Ondrej Kameniar, Jana Lábusová, Linda Majdanová, Thomas A. Nagel, Jakob Pavlin, Joseph L. Pettit, Ruffy Rodrigo, Cătălin-Constantin Roibu, Miloš Rydval, Francesco María Sabatini, Jonathan S. Schurman, Michal Synek, Ondřej Vostarek, Veronika Zemlerová, Miroslav Svoboda
Abstract
With accelerating environmental change, understanding forest disturbance impacts on trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon dynamics is of high socio-economic importance. Most studies, however, have assessed immediate or short-term effects of disturbance, while long-term impacts remain poorly understood. Using a tree-ring-based approach, we analysed the effect of 250 years of disturbances on present-day biodiversity indicators and carbon dynamics in primary forests. Disturbance legacies spanning centuries shaped contemporary forest co-benefits and trade-offs, with contrasting, local-scale effects. Disturbances enhanced carbon sequestration, reaching maximum rates within a comparatively narrow post-disturbance window (up to 50 years). Concurrently, disturbance diminished aboveground carbon storage, which gradually returned to peak levels over centuries. Temporal patterns in biodiversity potential were bimodal; the first maximum coincided with the short-term post-disturbance carbon sequestration peak, and the second occurred during periods of maximum carbon storage in complex old-growth forest. Despite fluctuating local-scale trade-offs, forest biodiversity and carbon storage remained stable across the broader study region, and our data support a positive relationship between carbon stocks and biodiversity potential. These findings underscore the interdependencies of forest processes, and highlight the necessity of large-scale conservation programmes to effectively promote both biodiversity and long-term carbon storage, particularly given the accelerating global biodiversity and climate crises.