We report on a structural complexity enhancement (SCE) experiment that was designed to test ecological restoration measures in the Black Forest National Park, Germany. The main goal was to understand as to whether the creation of standing and downed deadwood within previously managed, single-layered Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) forests accelerates the development of forest structure, richness, and diversity of a range of taxonomic groups. Here we introduce the experimental design and describe the development of stand structure including abundance and richness of tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) within 5 years after initiation of the experiment in October 2016. To enhance structural complexity in treatment plots, 10 trees per plot were toppled using a skidder winch, and another 10 trees were ring barked at a height of around 60 cm above ground level with a chainsaw. To monitor stand structure, we collected data on common forest attributes such as diameter at breast height (DBH), tree height, and TreMs of all trees in the six experimental and six control plots measuring 0.25 ha in size before the treatments were carried out in 2016 and again in 2020/21. We analyzed the abundance and richness of TreMs using generalized linear mixed models with DBH and treatment vs. control as predictors. The SCE treatment resulted in a significant increase in deadwood volumes (4.2 vs. 439.5 m(3)) as well as in TreM abundance and richness (increase of 0.74 TreMs per tree). This indicates that the SCE treatment was effective to increase biodiversity-relevant structures such as deadwood and TreMs, in previously managed Norway spruce-dominated stands. The ongoing monitoring of a range of taxonomic groups (birds, bats, small mammals, coleoptera, fungi, mosses, and vascular plants) in this experiment will demonstrate to what extent the enhancement in structural complexity will lead to an enrichment in species richness and diversity.

Mixed-species forests can have higher productivity, in terms of wood volume, than monospecific forests. In addition, higher tree species richness has been found to positively correlate with multiple ecosystem services and functions. Surprisingly, stem quality as one of the most important factors regarding the economic value of forests has rarely been formally studied in diverse forests. This paper aims at investigating how tree species richness influences stem quality and which factors may drive quality development in these stands. Stem quality, understood here essentially as the suitability of a particular stem for particular end-uses, is influenced by a tree's ability to capture sufficient resources for growth and is influenced by neighbouring trees, e.g. through shading and physical crown interactions. We collected data on crown size, stem form and tree health for over 12,000 trees in 209 study plots in six European regions (Finland, Germany, Poland, Romania, Italy and Spain) within naturally diverse forests to assess the impact of tree species richness on these characteristics. Results showed that quality variability between regions, stands and individual trees was high across species. At the stand level, there was a slight tendency towards lower stem quality with increasing diversity. However, individual trees of high quality were present at all diversity levels and for all target species. Tree species richness could not be confirmed as a primary influence on stem quality at the stand level. Rather, stand and individual tree properties such as structural composition, competition, tree size and crown characteristics were identified as the main factors for stem quality development, even in mixed stands. Many of the factors identified in this study can be directly or indirectly influenced by forest management strategies tailored to produce high-quality timber in mixed-species forests. Our findings suggest that diverse stands are not inferior regarding stem quality, while at the same time being able to provide various other ecosystem services.

Summary Promoting mixed‐species forests is an important strategy for adaptation and risk reduction in the face of global change. Concurrently, a main challenge in ecology is to quantify the effects of species diversity on ecosystem functioning. In forests, the effects of individual tree species on ecosystem functions depend largely on their dimensions, which are commonly predicted using allometric equations. However, little is known about how diversity influences allometry or how to incorporate this effect into allometric equations. Ignoring the effects of interspecific interactions on allometric relationships may result in severely biased predictions. This study examined the effects of tree‐species diversity, competition and tree social status on crown‐projection area (cpa), height (h) and live‐crown length (lcl) of trees using a European‐wide data set containing 17 target species and 12 939 trees. The cpa, h and lcl were predicted as functions of stem diameter at 1·3 m, tree‐species diversity, tree height relative to the stand mean height (rh) and a competition index (CI) that accounted for stand density and interspecific differences in competitive ability based on species‐specific wood density or shade tolerance. Averaged across species, diameter had the greatest effect on cpa and lcl, followed by the competition index, while rh had the greatest effect on lcl. Tree‐species diversity had the smallest effect on cpa, h and lcl. Interspecific variability in cpa, h or lcl responses to diversity, CI, or rh was sometimes related to wood density or shade tolerance. Synthesis. This study shows the strong influence of stand structure and species composition on allometric relationships. These influences can be quantified using measures of competition, tree‐species diversity and relative tree height so that general equations can be developed for a given species to be applied to a wide range of species compositions and stand structures. This new approach will greatly improve predictions of biomass and carbon stocks in structurally and compositionally diverse forests.

Humans require multiple services from ecosystems, but it is largely unknown whether trade-offs between ecosystem functions prevent the realisation of high ecosystem multifunctionality across spatial scales. Here, we combined a comprehensive dataset (28 ecosystem functions measured on 209 forest plots) with a forest inventory dataset (105,316 plots) to extrapolate and map relationships between various ecosystem multifunctionality measures across Europe. These multifunctionality measures reflected different management objectives, related to timber production, climate regulation and biodiversity conservation/recreation. We found that trade-offs among them were rare across Europe, at both local and continental scales. This suggests a high potential for 'win-win' forest management strategies, where overall multifunctionality is maximised. However, across sites, multifunctionality was on average 45.8-49.8% below maximum levels and not necessarily highest in protected areas. Therefore, using one of the most comprehensive assessments so far, our study suggests a high but largely unrealised potential for management to promote multifunctional forests.

Significance Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of biodiversity in maintaining multiple ecosystem functions and services (multifunctionality) at local spatial scales, but it is unknown whether similar relationships are found at larger spatial scales in real-world landscapes. Here, we show, for the first time to our knowledge, that biodiversity can also be important for multifunctionality at larger spatial scales in European forest landscapes. Both high local (α-) diversity and a high turnover in species composition between locations (high β-diversity) were found to be potentially important drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality. Our study provides evidence that it is important to conserve the landscape-scale biodiversity that is being eroded by biotic homogenization if ecosystem multifunctionality is to be maintained.

There is considerable evidence that biodiversity promotes multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality), thus ensuring the delivery of ecosystem services important for human well-being. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are poorly understood, especially in natural ecosystems. We develop a novel approach to partition biodiversity effects on multifunctionality into three mechanisms and apply this to European forest data. We show that throughout Europe, tree diversity is positively related with multifunctionality when moderate levels of functioning are required, but negatively when very high function levels are desired. For two well-known mechanisms, ‘complementarity’ and ‘selection’, we detect only minor effects on multifunctionality. Instead a third, so far overlooked mechanism, the ‘jack-of-all-trades’ effect, caused by the averaging of individual species effects on function, drives observed patterns. Simulations demonstrate that jack-of-all-trades effects occur whenever species effects on different functions are not perfectly correlated, meaning they may contribute to diversity–multifunctionality relationships in many of the world’s ecosystems.