Natural disturbance impacts on trade-offs and co-benefits of forest biodiversity and carbon

With accelerating environmental change, understanding the influence of
forest disturbances and trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon
dynamics is of high socio-economic importance. Most studies, however, have
assessed immediate or short-term effects of disturbance, while long-term
impacts remain poorly understood. Here, using a tree-ring-based approach,
we modelled the effect of 250 years of disturbances on present-day
biodiversity indicators and carbon dynamics in well-preserved European
temperate primary forests. Our results indicated that disturbance legacies
spanning centuries shaped contemporary forest co-benefits and trade-offs,
with contrasting, local-scale effects. In the short-term, disturbances
enhanced carbon sequestration, reaching maximum rates within a
comparatively narrow post-disturbance window (up to 50 years).
Concurrently, disturbance diminished aboveground carbon storage, which
gradually returned to peak levels over centuries. Temporal patterns in
biodiversity potential were bimodal; the first maximum coincided with the
short-term post-disturbance carbon sequestration peak, and the second
occurred during periods of maximum carbon storage in complex old growth.
However, despite fluctuating local-scale trade-offs, forest biodiversity
and carbon storage remained stable across the broader study region. These
findings underscore the dynamic interdependencies of forest processes, and
highlight the necessity of large-scale conservation programs to
effectively promote both biodiversity and long-term carbon storage,
particularly given the accelerating global biodiversity and climate
crises.