Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity
8 affiliations
- 1Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany. Electronic address: [email protected]
- 2Institute of Statistics, National Tsing Hua University, No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan
- 3Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto M1C 1A4, ON, Canada
- 4Bavarian Forest National Park, Freyunger Straße 2, Grafenau 94481, Germany
- 5Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany
- 6Conservation 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
- 7Animal 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
- 8Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology, Biocenter, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Glashüttenstraße 5, Rauhenebrach 96181, Germany; Bavarian Forest National Park, Freyunger Straße 2, Grafenau 94481, Germany
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.
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BibTeX
@article{wild2026restoring,
title = {{Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity}},
author = {Clara Wild and Anne Chao and Po-Yen Chuang and Marc W. Cadotte and Nico Daume and Orsi Decker and Ronja Hausmann and Sophia M. Hochrein and Michael Junginger and Mareike Kortmann and Sonja Kümmet and Soumen Mallick and Oliver Mitesser and Ruth Pickert and Julia Rothacher and Kai Sattler and Jens Schlüter and Simon Thorn and Jörg Müller},
journal = {Current Biology},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity
AU - Clara Wild
AU - Anne Chao
AU - Po-Yen Chuang
AU - Marc W. Cadotte
AU - Nico Daume
AU - Orsi Decker
AU - Ronja Hausmann
AU - Sophia M. Hochrein
AU - Michael Junginger
AU - Mareike Kortmann
AU - Sonja Kümmet
AU - Soumen Mallick
AU - Oliver Mitesser
AU - Ruth Pickert
AU - Julia Rothacher
AU - Kai Sattler
AU - Jens Schlüter
AU - Simon Thorn
AU - Jörg Müller
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/20
JO - Current Biology
DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.058
AB - 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.
SN - 0960-9822
SN - 1879-0445
ER -