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... 43 Regardless of forest type, DW stock usually increases with living biomass volume and stand age, which explains the importance of old-growth forests for biodiversity conservation and their greater capability to resist and absorb external stressors compared with heavily modified forest ecosystems or even-aged forests. 44,45 Following disturbances, veteran trees and dying trees can generate symbiotic conditions in the soil microbiome that improve habitat quality and species richness, thereby enhancing nutrient cycling, soil fertility, natural regeneration, and ecosystem resilience. 46 Soil DW management plays an important role in the EU Soil Strategy and in the proposal for a soil monitoring law, 47,48 which sets out a framework to monitor, protect, and restore soils and ensure that they are used sustainably by 2030. ...
... Ecological legacies of unmanaged forest can offer guidelines to set up boundaries that reduce the impact of stressors and maintain a ''safe operating space'' for biomass removal including DW. 117 For example, increasing the protection and preservation of primary and old-growth forests, which currently represent less than 3% of the total forest area in the EU, is essential to conserve biodiversity, including DW-related taxa, and ensure resilience to climate change. 44,45 Indeed, safeguarding high-integrity ecosystems and restoring ecosystems are key measures for adapting to climate change and coping with changes in natural disturbance regimes. The conservation of primary and old-growth forests is also necessary to measure the ecological integrity of the forest and the natural volume of DW, which could serve as a baseline or proxy for management objectives, including guiding restoration practices and adaptation measures. ...
The growing demand for woody biomass to meet the environmental and climate objectives of the European Green Deal raises concerns about the capacity of forest ecosystems to sustain their diverse services and functions. Deadwood, an often-overlooked source of biomass, exemplifies this dilemma, yet the evidence needed to enhance its management is sparse. Here, we put the role of deadwood into perspective through a literature review and comparison of estimates in managed and unmanaged forests. We demonstrate that deadwood intersects many overlapping and sometimes conflicting policies, playing a multifaceted role in the bioeconomy, biodiversity conservation, soil health, fire mitigation, bioenergy, and carbon storage. Given the increasing pressure on deadwood and the ecosystem services it provides, we argue that coherent and mutually supportive policies are needed to develop multifunctional pathways that reconcile deadwood management with biodiversity, bioenergy, and climate objectives. Therefore, we suggest that harmonized data and monitoring are essential, along with transdisciplinary collaboration, to identify trade-offs between biomass uses and values and ensure the maintenance of functional forest ecosystems.
... 6 However, environmental changes are driving a widespread loss of old trees and there is an urgent need to protect them. [7][8][9] Current conservation efforts for old trees are focused primarily on large old trees. 10,11 Tree age is often positively correlated with diameter, especially within a particular ecosystem type 12 ; large old trees are generally defined as trees with an extremely large diameter, such as trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) R50 cm. ...
... Although small old trees have strong stress resistance and are less susceptible to threats from natural enemies and human activities, they are at increasing risk of population decline due to land-use change, climate warming, and possibly new pathogens. 8 Global warming may allow insect herbivores and new pathogens to occupy high-latitude and mountainous areas that were previously refugia for small old trees. 15 As a result, billions of coniferous trees living in forests ranging from Mexico to Alaska have been killed by warming-induced native bark beetle outbreaks 44 and pathogens. ...
Old trees are irreplaceable natural resources that provide multifaceted benefits to humans. Current conservation strategies focus primarily on large-sized trees that were often considered old. However, some studies have demonstrated that small trees can be more than thousands of years old, suggesting that conventional size-focused perceptions may hamper the efficiency of current conservation strategies for old trees. Here, we compiled paired age and diameter data using tree-ring records sampled from 121,918 trees from 269 species around the world to detect whether tree size is a strong predictor of age for old trees and whether the spatial distribution of small old trees differs from that of large old trees. We found that tree size was a weak predictor of age for old trees, and diameter explained only 10% of the total age variance of old trees. Unlike large-sized trees that are mainly in warm, wet environments and protected, small old trees are predominantly in cold, dry environments and mostly unprotected, indicating that size-focused conservation failed to protect some of the oldest trees. To conserve old trees, comprehensive old-tree recognition systems are needed that consider not only tree size but also age and external characteristics. Protected areas designed for small old trees are urgently needed.
... 6 However, environmental changes are driving a widespread loss of old trees and there is an urgent need to protect them. [7][8][9] Current conservation efforts for old trees are focused primarily on large old trees. 10,11 Tree age is often positively correlated with diameter, especially within a particular ecosystem type 12 ; large old trees are generally defined as trees with an extremely large diameter, such as trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) R50 cm. ...
... Although small old trees have strong stress resistance and are less susceptible to threats from natural enemies and human activities, they are at increasing risk of population decline due to land-use change, climate warming, and possibly new pathogens. 8 Global warming may allow insect herbivores and new pathogens to occupy high-latitude and mountainous areas that were previously refugia for small old trees. 15 As a result, billions of coniferous trees living in forests ranging from Mexico to Alaska have been killed by warming-induced native bark beetle outbreaks 44 and pathogens. ...
... Moreover, our results stress the relevance of the tree age in studies on tree productivity of complex forest ecosystems (Ozdemir, 2021;Paluch and Jastrzębski, 2022;Piovesan et al., 2005) such as managed uneven-aged forests and old-growth stands. Overall, this study highlights the ability of old-growth forests to respond to human disturbances encouraging large-scale conservation and restoration projects of forest ecosystems as the best natural solution to global changes (Colangelo et al., 2021;Mikoláš et al., 2023) contributing to the urgent need to protect and restore tall forest (Huang et al., 2023). ...
... These forests are essential for providing ecosystem services, such as maintaining biodiversity (Hilmers et al., 2018;O'Brien et al., 2021), storing carbon (Luyssaert et al., 2008), and mediating microclimate (Frey et al., 2016). Although mandated in the EU Biodiversity 2030 strategy as a priority for protection, old-growth forests in Europe are threatened and increasingly scarce due to logging and land conversion (Hirschmugl et al., 2023;Mikoláš et al., 2023;O'Brien et al., 2021). Old-growth forests in Europe are also vulnerable to insect outbreaks due to the impact of the rising temperature driven by climate change (Forzieri et al., 2021). ...
Old-growth forests are essential to preserve biodiversity and play an important role in sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change. However, their existence across Europe is vulnerable due to the scarcity of their distribution, logging, and environmental threats. Therefore, providing the current status of old-growth forests across Europe is essential to aiding informed conservation efforts and sustainable forest management. Remote sensing techniques have proven effective for mapping and monitoring forests over large areas. However, relying solely on remote sensing spectral or structural information cannot capture comprehensive horizontal and vertical structure complexity profiles associated with old-growth forest characteristics. To overcome this issue, we combined spectral information from Sentinel-2A multispectral imagery with 3D structural information from high-density point clouds of airborne laser scanning (ALS) imagery to map old-growth forests over an extended area. Four features from the ALS data and fifteen from Sentinel-2A comprising raw band (spectral reflectance), vegetation indices (VIs), and texture were selected to create three datasets used in the classification process using the random forest algorithm. The results demonstrated that combining ALS and Sentinel-2A features improved the classification performance and yielded the highest accuracy for old-growth class, with an F1-score of 92% and producer’s and user’s accuracies of 93% and 90%, respectively. The findings suggest that features from ALS and Sentinel-2A data sensitive to forest structure are essential for identifying old-growth forests. Integrating open-access satellite imageries, such as Sentinel-2A and ALS data, can benefit forest managers, stakeholders, and conservationists in monitoring old-growth forest preservation across a broader spatial extent.
... The European Commission has recently defined guidelines for mapping and protecting the most valuable forest ecosystems, such as primary and old-growth forests (European Commission, 2023), and several studies have attempted to map such forests in Europe (Barredo et al., 2021;Sabatini et al., 2021). Despite these efforts, old-growth forests continue to decline in large parts of the EU (Mikoláš et al., 2023). Achieving the target of 10% strictly protected land set out in the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 requires further investigation of where other valuable forest types that should be protected are located. ...
The EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 aims to better protect natural ecosystems with high biodiversity and climate change mitigation potential. To achieve this goal, it is crucial to identify forests worth protecting, such as those characterized by long continuity and old age. Here, we propose a robust approach that combines historical maps from the mid‐19th century with remote sensing data to identify areas that have been forested for over 150 years, aiming to reduce the need for detailed and time‐consuming field investigations in potential conservation areas. We tested this approach in a 20,000 km² region in the Polish Carpathians, an area likely containing many unprotected forests of high conservation value, where historical maps from the mid‐19th century are representative of much of Central Europe. Our results showed that an area of approximately 4200 km² has been continuously forested since at least the mid‐19th century. Currently, 50% of these forests are outside protected areas, representing an important conservation opportunity. More generally, our approach can support the identification of valuable forests worth protecting before they are lost and provide useful insights for policymakers and stakeholders in the ongoing debate on the challenges of improving forest conservation in the Carpathians, and Europe more widely.
... Our results highlight the importance of the Carpathians Mountains as suitable habitats for saproxylic beetles under future climate conditions. Saproxylic beetle distributions are predicted to concentrate in the Carpathian region due to favorable climatic conditions, while disappearing from isolated lowland forested patches because of extreme climatic conditions and land use change (Mikolāš et al. 2023). These findings corroborate other studies in Europe, which highlighted that future emission scenarios show a general reduction in suitable habitats for saproxylic beetles and a shift toward higher altitudes (Della Rocca et al. 2019). ...
Climate change threatens species and ecosystems globally, including forest ecosystems that support rich invertebrate diversity. Saproxylic beetles, that depend on old-growth trees and deadwood, are facing increasing pressure. Consequently, conserving these beetles has become a priority for EU Member States. We developed ensemble species distribution models for five saproxylic beetles for current and three future time horizons under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and two Global Circulation Models. We used a systematic conservation planning approach to assess the effectiveness and resilience to climate change of the Romanian Natura 2000 network for saproxylic beetles while identifying areas for prospective protected area expansion to meet EU conservation targets. Our study revealed that under all scenarios and time horizons, the saproxylic beetles may lose over 80% of their suitable habitat and restrict their distribution to higher elevations. According to the conservation prioritization analysis, we found that, when considering 30% of the landscape as being protected, an average of 85% of species distribution is retained within priority areas overlapping the Carpathian Mountains, while for the current protected area coverage (18% of Romania’s terrestrial area), the existing Natura 2000 network does not perform satisfactorily, with only ~ 30% of the saproxylic species distributions falling within the network. Our results corroborate previous findings on saproxylic beetle range shifts and contractions due to climate change. Furthermore, our findings question the effectiveness of the current Natura 2000 network, as it is currently inadequate for protecting these species. To achieve the goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 of protecting at least 30% of the EU’s territory, we advocate the expansion of the Natura 2000 sites to future suitable saproxylic beetle habitats.
... The protection of old-growth forests is very important because they play a strategic role hosting a very peculiar biodiversity [7][8][9] and regulating water and nutrient cycling. Moreover, they are an essential reference for the application of a sustainable and closer to nature silviculture in managed forests and can guide the restoration of degraded forest ecosystems and store large amounts of carbon in absence of large-scale disturbances [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Due to the current climate change and emission reduction policies, carbon (C) sink and stock are noteworthy services provided by forests thanks to their capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and store C in alive and dead plant tissues and into the soil [17]. ...
Background
Carbon (C) sink and stock are among the most important ecosystem services provided by forests in climate change mitigation policies. In this context, old-growth forests constitute an essential reference point for the development of close-to-nature silviculture, including C management techniques. Despite their small extent in Europe, temperate old-growth forests are assumed to be among the most prominent in terms of biomass and C stored. However, monitoring and reporting of C stocks is still poorly understood. To better understand the C stock amount and distribution in temperate old-growth forests, we estimated the C stock of two old-growth stands in the Dinaric Alps applying different assessment methods, including direct and indirect approaches (e.g., field measurements and allometric equations vs. IPCC standard methods). This paper presents the quantification and the distribution of C across the five main forest C pools (i.e., aboveground, belowground, deadwood, litter and soil) in the study areas and the differences between the applied methods.
Results
We report a very prominent C stock in both study areas (507 Mg C ha− 1), concentrated in a few large trees (36% of C in 5% of trees). Moreover, we found significant differences in C stock estimation between direct and indirect methods. Indeed, the latter tended to underestimate or overestimate depending on the pool considered.
Conclusions
Comparison of our results with previous studies and data collected in European forests highlights the prominence of temperate forests, among which the Dinaric Alps old-growth forests are the largest. These findings provide an important benchmark for the development of future approaches to the management of the European temperate forests. However, further and deeper research on C stock and fluxes in old-growth stands is of prime importance to understand the potential and limits of the climate mitigation role of forests.
... Long-term fragmentation and habitat loss of temperate forests in Central Europe, changes in their tree species composition, age and stand structure due to forest management and overall human land-use are among the most important threats for forest biodiversity (Haddad et al., 2015;Mikoláš et al., 2023). However, we still lack sufficient information to determine the critical characteristics of forest habitats for populations of threatened species at the local (in relation to age, tree composition and structure) and landscape (minimum area/share of a particular habitat type or forest in the landscape) scales (Hofmeister et al., 2015;Rybicki et al., 2020;Thorn et al., 2020). ...
Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation are major causes of the ongoing decline of epiphytic and epixylic lichen species in temperate forests throughout Europe. We investigated how extant species richness and composition of epiphytic and epixylic lichen communities in ten hot-spots of lichen diversity in the Czech Republic reflected the occurrence and properties of potentially suitable microhabitats and habitats. At each hot-spot, we surveyed a pair of 1-ha square plots, one in (over-)mature managed and the second in unmanaged forest. In total, we recorded 513 epiphytic and epixylic lichen species which represent a substantial part of lichen biota in Central Europe. Species richness and composition of lichen communities were explained by microhabitat heterogeneity, and also by the area of near-natural forest habitats (habitat extent) at the landscape scale. In addition, lichen species richness and number of red-listed species were explained by a categorial variable distinguishing mature managed and unmanaged plots, used as a proxy of temporal continuity of natural succession. This finding illustrates that temporal continuity of natural succession in unmanaged forests likely had an extra stimulus for lichen communities that may not be reflected by observed aspects of forest habitats. Hence, we confirmed indispensable positive effects of (micro)habitat heterogeneity, and spatial and temporal continuity for preserved hot-spots of lichen diversity in Central Europe. Due to generally slow colonization-extinction dynamics of epiphytic and epixylic lichens we call for strengthening microhabitat heterogeneity, and the spatial and temporal continuity of European temperate forests at the landscape scale.
... Moreover, conservation measures are needed to ensure that forest biodiversity benefits from this prioritization scheme. The remaining relatively natural forests, especially along the mountains in the north of Sweden, should all be protected (Mikolāš et al. 2023) and this needs to be complemented by restoration and protection of more low-lying forest areas in the north and south of the country ). ...
... We found that Cerambyx cerdo is likely to lose almost 75% of its suitable areas due to the species requirements for old-growth oak forested habitats ( Our results showed the importance of Carpathians mountains as suitable habitats for the saproxylic beetles under future climate conditions. The saproxylic beetles will tend to concentrate in the Carpathian region due to favorable climatic conditions, while isolated lowland forested patches will disappear due to extreme climatic conditions and land use change (Mikolāš et al. 2023 Priority areas for saproxylic beetles Lastly, under the constrained scenario, when considering the additional 12% of the landscape for the optimal expansion of Natura 2000, an average of 80% of the saproxylic beetles species representation is retained, with the best representation for Osmoderma eremita (90% of distribution protected). Under the constrained scenario, most of the priority areas will be restricted to the Carpathian region, which harbors continuously forested habitats suitable for saproxylic insect development. ...
Climate change poses an increasing risk to biodiversity and habitats important for saproxylic beetles are likely to experience severe pressure and threats. The diversity of saproxylic beetles is an indicator of healthy forest ecosystems, and thus, the conservation of beetles is now a priority for EU Member States. We developed ensemble species distribution models for ve saproxylic beetles for current and three-time future horizons under two emission scenarios and two GCMs. We then used a systematic conservation planning approach to assess the effectiveness and resilience to climate change of Romanian Natura 2000 network for saproxylic beetles while identifying future areas for protected area expansion to meet EU conservation targets. Our study revealed that under all scenarios and time horizons, the saproxylic beetles will lose over 80% of their suitable habitat and restrict their distribution to higher elevations. According to the prioritization analysis, we found that when considering 30% of the landscape as protected, an average of 85% of species distribution is retained with priority areas overlapping the Carpathian Mountains, while for the current conditions (18% of Romania's terrestrial surface), the existing Natura 2000 network does not perform well, with almost ~30% of the saproxylic species distributions falling inside. Our results support the idea that the distribution of saproxylic beetles could change as a result of climate change, and the effectiveness of the current Natura 2000 network is put into question as it may be insu cient in protecting these species. To achieve the goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 of protecting at least 30% of the EU's land, we urge the expansion of the Natura 2000 sites.
... Forests are experiencing rapid and severe change due to land use conversion, climate change, and other anthropogenic pressures (Haddad et al. 2015;Neumann et al. 2017;Seidl et al. 2017) leading to, among other things, the loss of irreplaceable pristine forests (Gibson et al. 2011;Mikolāš et al. 2023). Identifying processes that underpin the structure, demography, and community composition of the regeneration stage of forest trees is fundamental to predicting present and future forest dynamics. ...
Seedlings are the most critical bottleneck in plant recruitment, yet there is no practical and widely accepted definition of what a seedling is. Typically, the end of the seedling stage has been defined as the point when it stops being dependent on seed resources, or at the point of maximum growth rate. However, these definitions are of limited use for ecological studies based on field surveys. I analyzed 25 years of literature and 1766 publications to provide a first quantitative assessment of how tree and shrub seedlings are defined in forest field studies. I counted 282 unique definitions of seedlings, and I found that 24.4% of studies did not provide a clear definition. The most widely used definitions were "newly emerged" seedlings, followed by individuals less than 50 cm and less than 100 cm tall. Only 6.9% of the studies cited previous work to justify their choice. The most used definitions were generally consistent between tropical and extra-tropical studies, and between single versus multiple species studies. Three simple steps, if adopted by authors, could help to improve the clarity of what is meant by seedlings: (1) to always provide a clear definition of seedling, (2) to refer to previous studies, and (3) to adopt the most widely used definitions reported here (i.e., < 50 cm or < 100 m tall) whenever possible.
... Policy makers should be able to embed all this complexity in the decisions aimed to achieve healthy forest ecosystems in the EU. In particular, strict protection of primary and old-growth forests and the creation of protective buffer zones facilitating its expansion and conservation should be a policy priority [51], as mandated in the EU biodiversity strategy to 2030. The time for urgent and decided policy action is now, before there remains little left to protect. ...
... Policy makers should be able to embed all this complexity in the decisions aimed to achieve healthy forest ecosystems in the EU. In particular, strict protection of primary and old-growth forests and the creation of protective buffer zones facilitating its expansion and conservation should be a policy priority [51], as mandated in the EU biodiversity strategy to 2030. The time for urgent and decided policy action is now, before there remains little left to protect. ...
This briefing describes the characteristics of primary and old-growth forests and assesses its resilience to natural disturbances, in particular wildfires. Likewise, the role of primary and old-growth forests on wildfire risk is analysed with a view on the EU’s policy aim of strictly protecting these forests as called for in the EU’s Biodiversity and Forest Strategies to 2030.
Addressing the scope of biodiversity loss is a societal issue. However, consensus regarding effective management practices to attenuate species extinction is lacking. An assessment of spatial variation in species assemblages (beta-diversity) provides a promising framework for informing forest landscape planning. Within the context of recent European Union biodiversity conservation goals, this research demonstrates an application of beta-diversity theory to understand spatial patterns in the distribution of a suite of environmentally-sensitive taxa within Europe’s remaining best-preserved primary forests. We sampled the local community composition (alpha-diversity) of four taxonomic groups (birds, epiphytic and epixylic lichens, saproxylic beetles, and deadwood-inhabiting fungi) to estimate corresponding levels of beta-diversity, as well as the underlying spatial components of nestedness and turnover. To identify particularly sensitive sites on the landscape that are potentially important for multiple species, we assessed beta-diversity congruence among the taxonomic groups. To elucidate critical abiotic factors and resource attributes underpinning biodiversity patterns, we regressed observed levels of local species richness against selected habitat variables. Results show that levels of beta-diversity were high and predominantly driven by spatial turnover, particularly for dispersal-limited organisms having relationships with deadwood. Beta-diversity was lowest for the avian group, reflecting their mobility. The lichen and fungal groups were correlated in terms of beta-diversity and turnover likely due to similar resource requirements. Variation in deadwood attributes (volume, decay stage) was significantly related to the local species richness of beetle and lichen communities. We identified occurrences of several threatened (red-listed) species that were similarly associated with deadwood substrates. We suggest that the beta-diversity patterns and habitat associations revealed by our analyses provide baseline data for comparison with managed systems. In particular, our findings highlight the importance of dead trees and logs for biodiversity conservation, suggesting a need for management strategies that retain an abundant and diverse supply of deadwood in forested landscapes.
Efforts to avert dangerous climate change by conserving and restoring natural habitats are hampered by widespread concerns over the credibility of methods used to quantify their net long-term benefits. We develop a novel, flexible framework for estimating the long-run social benefit of impermanent carbon credits generated by nature-based interventions which integrates three substantial advances: the conceptualisation of the permanence of a project’s impact as its additionality over time (relative to a statistically-derived counterfactual); the risk-averse estimation of the social cost of future reversals of carbon gains; and the deployment of post-credit monitoring to correct for errors in deliberately pessimistic release forecasts. Our framework generates incentives for safeguarding already-credited carbon while enabling would-be investors to make like-for-like comparisons of diverse carbon projects. Preliminary comparisons suggest that after fully adjusting for the impermanence of their effects, nature-based interventions may offer less costly ways of reducing climate damages than more technological solutions.
Plain Language Summary
Natural ecosystems that have seen limited direct human impact are threatened by land use change. Land use in boreal regions is dominated by forestry but the rate at which older boreal forests with high naturalness are converted to planted and seeded forest for wood harvesting remains unquantified. We used a set of uniquely detailed databases and maps to estimate the share of old and previously uncut forests in annual harvests and at which rate these forests are being lost in Sweden. The results indicate that about a fifth of cut forest area since 2003 was cuts of previously uncut old forest. If the present trajectory continues, the remaining unprotected old and previously uncut forests will be converted to planted and seeded managed forests within a couple of decades. Given the slow development and distinct structural and ecological characteristics of these old forests, this loss may define the landscape for centuries.
High‐conservation‐value forests (HCVFs) are critically important for biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning, but they face many threats. Where systematic HCVF inventories are missing, such as in parts of Eastern Europe, these forests remain largely unacknowledged and therefore often unprotected. We devised a novel, transferable approach for detecting HCVFs based on integrating historical spy satellite images, contemporary remote sensing data (Landsat), and information on current potential anthropogenic pressures (e.g., road infrastructure, population density, demand for fire wood, terrain). We applied the method to the Romanian Carpathians, for which we mapped forest continuity (1955–2019), canopy structural complexity, and anthropogenic pressures. We identified 738,000 ha of HCVF. More than half of this area was identified as susceptible to current anthropogenic pressures and lacked formal protection. By providing a framework for broad‐scale HCVF monitoring, our approach facilitates integration of HCVF into forest conservation and management. This is urgently needed to achieve the goals of the European Union's Biodiversity Strategy to maintain valuable forest ecosystems.
Primary forests, defined here as forests where the signs of human impacts, if any, are strongly blurred due to decades without forest management, are scarce in Europe and continue to disappear. Despite these losses, we know little about where these forests occur. Here, we present a comprehensive geodatabase and map of Europe’s known primary forests. Our geodatabase harmonizes 48 different, mostly field-based datasets of primary forests, and contains 18,411 individual patches (41.1 Mha) spread across 33 countries. When available, we provide information on each patch (name, location, naturalness, extent and dominant tree species) and the surrounding landscape (biogeographical regions, protection status, potential natural vegetation, current forest extent). Using Landsat satellite-image time series (1985–2018) we checked each patch for possible disturbance events since primary forests were identified, resulting in 94% of patches free of significant disturbances in the last 30 years. Although knowledge gaps remain, ours is the most comprehensive dataset on primary forests in Europe, and will be useful for ecological studies, and conservation planning to safeguard these unique forests.
Forest restoration is being scaled-up globally to deliver critical ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits, yet we lack rigorous comparison of co-benefit delivery across different restoration approaches. In a global synthesis, we use 25,950 matched data pairs from 264 studies in 53 countries to assess how delivery of climate, soil, water, and wood production services as well as biodiversity compares across a range of tree plantations and native forests. Carbon storage, water provisioning, and especially soil erosion control and biodiversity benefits are all delivered better by native forests, with compositionally simpler, younger plantations in drier regions performing particularly poorly. However, plantations exhibit an advantage in wood production. These results underscore important trade-offs among environmental and production goals that policymakers must navigate in meeting forest restoration commitments.
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