Trade-offs in the multi-use potential of managed boreal forests

1. Implementing multi-use forest management to account for both commercial and non-commercial ecosystem services is gaining increased global recognition. Despite its spatial extent, and great economic and ecological values, few studies have evaluated the boreal forest and its management to assess the potential for simultaneous delivery of a suite of ecosystem services. 2. Using data from a Swedish long-term experiment this study explores how biodiversity of the ground vegetation and potential delivery of multiple ecosystem services (timber production, carbon (C) storage and non-timber forest products) are influenced by two common silvicultural practices (thinning, fertilization and their interaction). 3. Diversity (diversity indices and species richness) of the ground vegetation was higher in thinned than in unthinned forest, something partly explained by six species of lichens that only occurred in thinned forest. In addition, supply of lichens for reindeer forage was three times highe...