PMID- 32217309
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20200506
LR  - 20200506
IS  - 1095-8630 (Electronic)
IS  - 0301-4797 (Linking)
VI  - 264
DP  - 2020 Jun 15
TI  - What do tree-related microhabitats tell us about the abundance of forest-dwelling 
      bats, birds, and insects?
PG  - 110401
LID - S0301-4797(20)30336-4 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110401 [doi]
AB  - Retaining trees during harvesting to conserve biodiversity is becoming 
      increasingly common in forestry. To assess, select and monitor these habitat 
      trees, ecologists and practitioners often use Tree-related Microhabitats (TreMs), 
      which are assumed to represent the abundance and diversity of environmental 
      resources for a wide range of forest-dwelling taxa. However, the relationship 
      between TreMs and forest organisms is not fully understood. In this context, we 
      attempted to identify and quantify the links between TreMs and three groups of 
      forest organisms: insects, bats, and birds. Specifically, we tested whether 
      species abundance is influenced by TreM abundance, either as direct predictor or 
      as mediator of environmental predictors. We collected data in 86 temperate, 1-ha 
      mixed forest plots and employed a hierarchical generalized mixed model to assess 
      the influence of seven environmental predictors (aspect, number and height of 
      standing dead trees, cover of herb and shrub layer, volume of lying deadwood, and 
      terrain ruggedness index (TRI)) on the abundance of TreMs (15 groups) on 
      potential habitat trees, insects (10 orders), bats (5 acoustic groups) and birds 
      (29 species) as a function of seven environmental predictors: aspect, number and 
      height of standing dead trees, cover of herb and shrub layer, volume of lying 
      deadwood, and terrain ruggedness index (TRI). This allowed us to generate a 
      correlation matrix with potential links between abundances of TreMs and 
      co-occurring forest organisms. These correlations and the environmental 
      predictors were tested in a structural equation model (SEM) to disentangle and 
      quantify the effects of the environment from direct effects of TreMs on forest 
      organisms. Four TreM groups showed correlations > |0.30| with forest organisms, 
      in particular with insects and bats. Rot holes and concavities were directly 
      linked with three insect groups and two bat groups. Their effect was smaller than 
      effects of environmental predictors, except for the pairs "rot holes - 
      Sternorrhyncha" and "rot holes - bats" of the Pipistrellus group. In addition, 
      TreMs had indirect effects on forest organisms through mediating the effects of 
      environmental predictors. We found significant associations between two out of 
      fifteen TreM groups and five out of 44 forest organism groups. These results 
      indicate that TreM abundance on potential habitat trees is not suited as a 
      general indicator of the species abundance across broad taxonomic groups but 
      possibly for specific target groups with proven links.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
FAU - Basile, Marco
AU  - Basile M
AD  - Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher 
      Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany. Electronic address: marcob.nat@gmail.com.
FAU - Asbeck, Thomas
AU  - Asbeck T
AD  - Chair of Silviculture, Institute of Forest Sciences, University of Freiburg, 
      Tennenbacher Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany.
FAU - Jonker, Marlotte
AU  - Jonker M
AD  - Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher 
      Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany; Forest Research Institute of 
      Baden-Wurttemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestr. 4, D-79100, Freiburg, Germany.
FAU - Knuff, Anna K
AU  - Knuff AK
AD  - Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, 
      Tennenbacher Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany.
FAU - Bauhus, Jurgen
AU  - Bauhus J
AD  - Chair of Silviculture, Institute of Forest Sciences, University of Freiburg, 
      Tennenbacher Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany.
FAU - Braunisch, Veronika
AU  - Braunisch V
AD  - Forest Research Institute of Baden-Wurttemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestr. 4, D-79100, 
      Freiburg, Germany; Conservation Biology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, 
      University of Bern, Baltzerstr. 6, CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland.
FAU - Mikusinski, Grzegorz
AU  - Mikusinski G
AD  - Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher 
      Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany; Department of Ecology, Swedish University of 
      Agricultural Sciences SLU, Grimso Wildlife Research Station, SE 730 91, 
      Riddarhyttan, Sweden.
FAU - Storch, Ilse
AU  - Storch I
AD  - Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacher 
      Str. 4, D-79106, Freiburg, Germany.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20200326
PL  - England
TA  - J Environ Manage
JT  - Journal of environmental management
JID - 0401664
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Biodiversity
MH  - *Birds
MH  - Ecosystem
MH  - Forestry
MH  - Insecta
MH  - *Trees
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Biodiversity indicator
OT  - Forest management
OT  - Retention forestry
OT  - Structural equation models
OT  - TreMs
COIS- Declaration of competing interest ☒ The authors declare that they have no known 
      competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared 
      to influence the work reported in this paper.
EDAT- 2020/03/29 06:00
MHDA- 2020/05/07 06:00
CRDT- 2020/03/29 06:00
PHST- 2019/08/23 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2020/02/28 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2020/03/03 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2020/03/29 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2020/05/07 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2020/03/29 06:00 [entrez]
AID - S0301-4797(20)30336-4 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110401 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Environ Manage. 2020 Jun 15;264:110401. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110401. 
      Epub 2020 Mar 26.