Biodiversity and ecosystem services of small forest fragments in European landscapes – smallFOREST

In many parts of Europe, the original forest cover has strongly been reduced and in these regions forests presently occur as small fragments, often embedded in an intensively used agricultural matrix. Despite their small size, these forest patches often act as refugia for biodiversity and may provide a wide range of ecosystem services (ES) to populations and human society. Biodiversity and ES of small forest fragments are mutually dependent as they are determined by a similar set of drivers. However, the nature and strength of the relationships between biodiversity and ES will vary, depending on the taxanomic group and ES under consideration, and on the landscape context including the type and intensity of the surrounding land-use and the land-use history. Moreover, the value attributed to an ES will differ between different regions. All these sources of variation remain largely unknown and their effects on human perception, hence on decisions about management, planning and policy, is poorly understood. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to quantify ES and biodiversity in small forest fragments among agricultural landscapes and across different regions in Europe, to analyse how their mutual relationships vary between landscapes and to assess the extent to which ES are valued differently. The project will complement the recently started FP7-project FunDivEurope (Functional significance of forest biodiversity in Europe) and will build on a unique field experiment covering ~650 forest patches in 16 5 km x 5 km landscape sampling windows in southern France, northern France, Belgium, northwestern Germany, northeastern Germany, southern Sweden, central Sweden and Estonia (2 windows per region). This sample design covers the entire European temperate forest biome through a SW-NE transect. The studied patches are mostly deciduous forest stands and for each patch standardized data are available in an already operational database on the occurring vascular plant species, on its history, the surrounding land cover, and its spatial characteristics. During the project, additional data will be collected to quantify the structural, functional and taxonomic biodiversity and to determine a well-chosen set of ES (including provisioning, regulating and cultural services such as e.g. stemwood production, above- and below-ground carbon sequestration, tick abundance and their role of disease vector, plant-pest-beneficial insect interactions) delivered by the patches. In doing so, we use a series of proxy-measurements that allow covering all the ~650 patches. The valuation of the ES considered will be performed through a combination of local data collection and benefit transfer approaches, using highly innovative tools such as cognitive mapping. Finally, we envisage two levels of stakeholder involvement: (1) regional stakeholder boards will be involved from the beginning to guide the final ES selection, to reflect on the valuation of the ES and to guarantee the translation of the results to end users such as forest owners, forest managers and regional policy makers; (2) a supranational stakeholder board will be involved to assure bidirectional feedback with European policy and international conventions related to biodiversity and sustainable forest management.