{
  "abstract": "Effective conservation and restoration rely on understanding how biodiversity responds to environmental change. Centuries of wood production have simplified forest structure and reduced biodiversity. In a large-scale, replicated landscape experiment, we tested how restoring structural complexity through canopy gaps and deadwood increases the diversity of bats and birds, both flying insectivorous vertebrates, across spatial scales. We compared diversity between structurally heterogeneous and homogeneous temperate beech forests across 11 experimental landscapes in Germany. Both taxa were recorded using autonomous acoustic monitoring and automatic species identification. We quantified taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity within forest patches (α-diversity), among patches (β-diversity), and across the landscape (γ-diversity). Our experimental enhancement of structural complexity increased γ-diversity for both taxa but through distinct mechanisms. In bats, increases in γ-diversity were primarily driven by β-diversity, indicating greater dissimilarity in assemblages among patches, while γ-diversity in birds only increased through local gains in α-diversity. Bat diversity increases were mainly taxonomic, suggesting functional similarity to control assemblages, whereas birds showed the highest gains in functional diversity, indicating greater trait dissimilarity in heterogeneous forests. These differences likely reflect variation in spatial ecology, with bats responding more to spatially distributed heterogeneity within landscapes, while birds benefit from increasing local habitat complexity. Our results provide evidence that γ-diversity can be shaped by different mechanisms, indicating that forest restoration must be taxon specific and scale dependent to effectively enhance biodiversity.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany. Electronic address: clara.wildm@gmail.com",
    "Institute of Statistics, National Tsing Hua University, No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan",
    "Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto M1C 1A4, ON, Canada",
    "Bavarian Forest National Park, Freyunger Straße 2, Grafenau 94481, Germany",
    "Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany",
    "Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany; Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Medicinaregatan 7B, Göteborg, 413 90, Sweden",
    "Animal Ecology, Faculty of Biology, University of Marburg, Karl-von-Frisch-Straße 8, Marburg 35043, Germany; Hessian Agency for Nature Conservation, Environment and Geology, Biodiversity Center, Europastraße 10, Gießen 35394, Germany; Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre, Institute of Entomology, Branišovská 1160/31, České Budějovice 37005, Czech Republic",
    "Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany; Bavarian Forest National Park, Freyunger Straße 2, Grafenau 94481, Germany"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 19,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Clara Wild",
      "orcid": "0009-0000-1132-1633"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Anne Chao",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4364-8101"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Po-Yen Chuang",
      "orcid": "0009-0002-4993-9919"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Marc W. Cadotte",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5816-7693"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Nico Daume",
      "orcid": "0009-0006-7466-5875"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Orsi Decker",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6280-697X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Ronja Hausmann",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-5859-2962"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Sophia M. Hochrein",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4013-1147"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Michael Junginger",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-6814-5433"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Mareike Kortmann",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4210-5276"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Sonja Kümmet",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8954-0200"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Soumen Mallick",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0168-7919"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Oliver Mitesser",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-3607-877X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Ruth Pickert",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-4327-0346"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Julia Rothacher",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0083-7893"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Kai Sattler",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-9081-5640"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Jens Schlüter",
      "orcid": "0009-0002-7835-8806"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Simon Thorn"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Jörg Müller",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1409-1586"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/aqtvj9wzmmb1x.bib",
  "cited_by": 9,
  "doi": "10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "aqtvj9wzmmb1x",
  "issns": [
    "0960-9822",
    "1879-0445"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1105|Bat Biology and Ecology Studies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7161791207",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": "42167241",
  "published": "2026-05-20",
  "publisher": "Elsevier BV",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/aqtvj9wzmmb1x.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:50Z",
      "native_id": "W7161791207",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058"
    }
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  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:1105|Bat Biology and Ecology Studies",
      "subfield": "ecology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity",
  "title_text": "Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T13:21:08Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/aqtvj9wzmmb1x",
  "venue": "Current Biology",
  "versions": []
}