Forest biodiversity in a changing climate: which logic for conservation strategies?

Climate change has direct and indirect impacts on forest ecosystems worldwide. In this context, changing site conditions and altered disturbance regimes as well as forest management responses are challenging the conservation of biodiversity in forests. Climate-induced dynamics and uncertainties related to future forest ecosystem development are calling into question current conservation strategies and concepts. Given the longevity of trees, slow development rates of forest ecosystems and slow migration rates of many forest species, the planning of adaptation measures in response to climate change are especially difficult though highly important for forest biodiversity conservation. This paper introduces a special issue with eight contributions which deal with a variety of aspects of forest biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change. More specifically, the papers address direct impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity, adaptation measures for forest and conservation management, as well as resulting challenges for conservation strategies and concepts. In conclusion, adaptation measures that enhance diversity and provide different options for future action, thereby maintaining ecosystems' resilience, as well as conservation management operating on a landscape level, are promoted as being beneficial for coping with uncertainties related to climate change. Adaptive management, which constantly reviews conservation goals and measures, and which takes into account both science-based and local ecological knowledge on climate change can be a valuable tool to inform decisions for forest biodiversity conservation.