Boreal Forest Biodiversity Recovery Curves

These data are part of a systematic review and meta-analysis that quantified resilience of boreal forest biodiversity to clearcut harvest using 190 datasets from Europe/Russia and North America studied among the following broad biotic groups: birds, bryophytes, arthropods (labeled using Bugs_Arthropods in attached datasets - and includes subgroups and sub-subgroups nested within the dataset), lichens, small mammals, and vascular plants. Similarity of community composition between harvested and unharvested reference forest stands was modeled as a function of years-post-harvest. Each dataset below is for a single biotic group, with one file for the comparison of reference replicate plots/stands to one another within a dataset and the other for the comparison of harvested replicate plots/stands to reference replicate plots/stands within a dataset.

The Taxa.....REF-vsREF-anon.csv files are comparing the reference condition with the other reference conditions within each individual dataset. The Taxa.....TRT-vsREF-anon.csv files are comparing the forest harvest (referred to as trt = treatment here) with the reference condition data within each individual dataset. For some biotic groups, there were datasets that captured all forest types (conifer, broadleaf, and mixed (conifer + broadleaf) and others where only a subset of the forest types were included. The dataset files below indicate which types of forests were included in the dataset.

The measure that is used to compare the recovery of the individual sample biotic group community over years post-harvest is the Chao Jaccard similarity. We calculated similarity in species composition between replicate stands/plots within a dataset using the Chao-Jaccard Similarity index. Chao-Jaccard dissimilarity values were calculated using the dis.chao() function from the CommEcol package137 in R vers. 4.2.2135 and then converted to similarity (1-dissimilarity).

Read the Metadata_entity_level.csv for a detailed description of the fields included in the individual datasets (Not all datasets include all the fields).

Note: The study will be published in Nature Sustainability in 2026; all of the datasets have been anonymized to remove any identifying information to maintain the integrity of the data for the individual studies and associated researchers who shared their data for this study. We are grateful for their willingness to contribute their datasets.