Long-term effect of forest harvesting on boreal species assemblages under climate change

Logging is the main human disturbance impacting biodiversity in forest ecosystems. However, the impact of forest harvesting on biodiversity is modulated by abiotic conditions through complex relationships that remain poorly documented. Therefore, the interplay between forest management and climate change can no longer be ignored. Our aim was to study the expected long-term variations in the assemblage of bird and beetle communities following modifications in forest management under different climate change scenarios. We developed species distribution models to predict the occurrence of 88 species of birds and beetles in eastern Canadian boreal forests over the next century.
We simulated three climate scenarios (baseline, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) under which we varied the level of harvesting.   We also analyzed the regional assemblage dissimilarity by decomposing it into balanced variations in species occupancy and occupancy gradient. We predict that forest harvesting will alter the diversity ..., ,