Bark Beetles Increase Biodiversity While Maintaining Drinking Water Quality

Increasing natural disturbances in conifer forests worldwide complicate political decisions about appropriate land management. In particular, allowing insects to kill trees without intervention has intensified public debate over the dual roles of strictly protected areas to sustain ecosystem service...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Conservation letters 2015-07, Vol.8 (4), p.272-281
Main Authors: Beudert, Burkhard, Bässler, Claus, Thorn, Simon, Noss, Reed, Schröder, Boris, Dieffenbach‐Fries, Helga, Foullois, Nicole, Müller, Jörg
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bark
bark beetles
Bavarian Forest National Park
Biodiversity
Coniferous forests
conifers
conservation areas
Drinking water
Ecosystem services
Ecosystems
Forest management
Forest protection
Forests
Insect outbreak
Ips typographus
issues and policy
Land management
montane forests
Mountain forests
national park management
National parks
Natural disturbance
nitrates
Parks & recreation areas
Picea abies
politics
Precipitation
Protected areas
Runoff
Scolytidae
Taxonomy
Trees
Water quality
Water shortages
World Health Organization
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Summary:Increasing natural disturbances in conifer forests worldwide complicate political decisions about appropriate land management. In particular, allowing insects to kill trees without intervention has intensified public debate over the dual roles of strictly protected areas to sustain ecosystem services and to conserve biodiversity. Here we show that after large scale bark beetle Ips typographus infestation in spruce Picea abies forests in southeastern Germany, maximum nitrate concentrations in runoff used for drinking water increased significantly but only temporarily at the headwater scale. Moreover, this major criterion of water quality remained consistently far below the limit recommended by the World Health Organization. At the same time, biodiversity, including numbers of Red‐listed species, increased for most taxa across a broad range of lineages. Our study provides strong support for a policy to allow natural disturbance‐recovery processes to operate unimpeded in conifer‐dominated mountain forests, especially within protected areas.
ISSN:1755-263X
1755-263X
DOI:10.1111/conl.12153