Long-term comparison shows protected and non-protected forests differ in harvesting, but not in wildfires or drought-driven dieback

While disturbances are essential for biodiversity, their escalation driven by climate change may threaten forest ecosystems. Contrasting approaches to adapt forests to disturbances—intensifying management versus encouraging natural succession towards more mature ecosystems—have sparked a debate about whether protection influences forests' vulnerability to disturbance. This question, however, has barely been investigated. Natura 2000 network is the backbone of biodiversity protection in Europe. We compared the long-term incidence of harvesting, wildfires, and drought-driven forest dieback inside and outside Natura 2000 areas in Catalonia (NE Spain) by combining remote sensing-derived maps of harvesting and wildfires (1985-2023), an exhaustive ground survey on forest dieback (2012-2023), and forest characteristics extracted from 3,400 permanent plots inventoried in 1990, 2000, and 2015.
, , \* The “Data_Tables_S2_S3_S4_S6.xlsx” file contains the raw data for the analyses of the effects of forest protection, bioclimatic region, slope, aspect, forest leaf habit, basal area (in 1990, 2000 and 2015) and % basal area harvested per plot between 2000 and 2015 (only for the analysis of forest dieback) on two dependent variables, i.e: i) the occurrence of an unspecific disturbance, wildfire or harvesting event, ii) the occurrence of a drought-driven forest dieback episode

In the datafile each row corresponds to a permanent plot of the Spanish National Forest inventory.

*Explanation of column headers for the different variables

“SNFI plot id”: Identification code of each permanent plot of the Spanish National Inventory

“longitude”: angular distance of a place east or west of the prime Meridian. (degrees)

“latitude”: angular distance of a place north or south of the Equator. (degrees)

“bioclimatic region”: geographic area defined by similar climate conditions, mainly temperatur...,

尽管干扰对生物多样性至关重要，但气候变化驱动的干扰加剧可能威胁森林生态系统。针对森林适应干扰的两种对立策略——强化经营管理与促进自然演替以形成更成熟的生态系统——引发了一场争论：保护措施是否会影响森林对干扰的脆弱性。然而，这一问题至今几乎未被研究。
Natura 2000网络（Natura 2000）是欧洲生物多样性保护的核心支柱。本研究结合遥感获取的1985-2023年采伐与野火分布图、2012-2023年全面的森林枯衰地面调查数据，以及从1990、2000和2015年三次调查的3400个永久样地中提取的森林特征数据，对比了西班牙加泰罗尼亚（西班牙东北部）Natura 2000保护区内外采伐、野火和干旱驱动的森林枯衰的长期发生率。

* 《Data_Tables_S2_S3_S4_S6.xlsx》文件包含了森林保护、生物气候区、坡度、坡向、森林叶型、1990、2000及2015年的胸高断面积，以及2000-2015年间样地的采伐胸高断面积占比（仅用于森林枯衰分析）对两个因变量影响的分析原始数据：
i) 非特异性干扰、野火或采伐事件的发生情况；
ii) 干旱驱动的森林枯衰事件的发生情况。

本数据文件中每一行对应西班牙国家森林清查（Spanish National Forest Inventory，SNFI）的一个永久样地。

* 各变量列标题说明：
"SNFI plot id"：西班牙国家森林清查各永久样地的识别编码。
"longitude"：本初子午线以东或以西的角距离，单位为度（degrees）。
"latitude"：赤道以北或以南的角距离，单位为度。
"bioclimatic region"：由相似气候条件（主要为温度……）定义的地理区域。