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Studies have shown negative impacts of increased human pressures on biodiversity at local (alpha‐diversity) and regional (gamma‐diversity) scales. However, the diversity between local sites (beta‐diversity) has received less attention. This is an important shortcoming since beta‐diversity acts as a linkage between the local and regional scales. Decreased beta‐diversity means that local sites lose their distinctiveness, becoming more similar to each other. This process is known as biotic homogenization. However, the mechanisms causing biotic homogenization have not been fully studied nor its impacts on different facets of biodiversity. We examined if land‐use change due to human actions causes biotic homogenization of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in bird communities of forested habitats in the state of Minnesota, USA. We address if forest loss and increased human domination in a region were associated with decreased beta‐diversity. Our results showed that elevated human pressure was not related to increased biotic homogenization in this study region. Effects of landscape change were incongruent among taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. At all spatial scales, taxonomic diversity was unrelated to forest loss or human domination. Interestingly, increased human domination appeared to increase the functional beta‐diversity of bird communities. This association was driven by a decrease in local diversity. Forest habitat loss was associated with decreasing functional and phylogenetic diversity in local communities (alpha‐diversity) and in regional species pool (gamma‐diversity), but not in beta‐diversity. We highlight the importance of considering multiple facets of biodiversity as their responses to human land‐use is varied. Conservation significance of beta‐diversity hinges on local and regional diversity responses to human land‐use intensification, and organization of biodiversity should therefore be analyzed at multiple spatial scales. We address if increased human land‐use intensity results in biotic homogenization, that is, decreased variation in structure among local sites, in forest bird communities. In this analysis, we used bird census data from Minnesota, USA. Elevated human pressure was not related to increased biotic homogenization but interestingly, increased human pressure appeared to increase the between‐site functional diversity of bird communities.

1. The boreal biome, representing approximately one-third of remaining global forests, provides a number of crucial ecosystem services. A particular challenge in forest ecosystems is to reconcile demand for an increased timber production with provisioning of other ecosystem services and biodiversity. However, there is still little knowledge about how forest management could help solve this challenge. Hence, studies that investigate how to manage forests to reduce trade-offs between ecosystem services and biodiversity are urgently needed to help forest owners and policy makers take informed decisions. 2. We applied seven alternative forest management regimes using a forest growth simulator in a large boreal forest production landscape. First, we estimated the potential of the landscape to provide harvest revenues, store carbon and maintain biodiversity across a 50-year time period. Then, we applied multiobjective optimization to identify the trade-offs between these three objectives and to identify the optimal combination of forest management regimes to achieve these objectives. 3. It was not possible to achieve high levels of either carbon storage or biodiversity if the objective of forest management was to maximize timber harvest revenues. Moreover, conflicts between biodiversity and carbon storage became stronger when simultaneously targeting high levels of timber revenues. However, with small reductions in timber revenues, it was possible to greatly increase the multifunctionality of the landscape, especially the biodiversity indicators. 4. Forest management actions, alternative to business-as-usual management, such as reducing thinnings, extending the rotation period and increasing the amount of area set aside from forestry may be necessary to safeguard biodiversity and non-timber ecosystem services in Fennoscandia. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results show that no forest management regime alone is able to maximize timber revenues, carbon storage and biodiversity individually or simultaneously and that a combination of different regimes is needed to resolve the conflicts among these objectives. We conclude that it is possible to reduce the trade-offs between different objectives by applying diversified forest management planning at the boreal landscape level and that we need to give up the all-encompassing objective of very intensive timber production, which is prevailing particularly in Fennoscandian countries.

Introduction: A main goal of protected areas is to maintain species diversity and the integrity of biological assemblages. Intensifying land use in the matrix surrounding protected areas creates a challenge for biodiversity conservation. Earlier studies have mainly focused on taxonomic diversity within protected areas. However, functional and especially phylogenetic diversities are less studied phenomena, especially with respect to the impacts of the matrix that surrounds protected areas. Phylogenetic diversity refers to the range of evolutionary lineages, the maintenance of which ensures that future evolutionary potential is safeguarded. Functional diversity refers to the range of ecological roles that members of a community perform. For ecosystem functioning and long-term resilience, they are at least as important as taxonomic diversity. Aim: We studied how the characteristics of protected areas and land use intensity in the surrounding matrix affect the diversity of bird communities in protected boreal forests. We used line-transect count and land-cover data from 91 forest reserves in Northern Finland, and land-cover data from buffer zones surrounding these reserves. We studied if habitat diversity and productivity inside protected areas, and intensity of forest management in the matrix have consistent effects on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversities, and community specialization. Results: We found that habitat diversity and productivity inside protected areas have strong effects on all diversity metrics, but matrix effects were inconsistent. The proportion of old forest in the matrix, reflecting low intensity forest management, had positive effects on community specialization. Interestingly, functional diversity increased with increasing logging intensity in the matrix. Conclusions: Our results indicate that boreal forest reserves are not able to maintain their species composition and abundances if embedded in a severely degraded matrix. Our study also highlights the importance of focusing on different aspects of biodiversity.

Most studies on intraspecific competition, i.e., competition among individuals of the same species, have been conducted during the breeding season. Yet, at northern latitudes, intraspecific competition is expected to be particularly strong under the harsh weather conditions of the non-breeding season with limited number of resources available per individual. We studied the food-hoarding behaviour of wintering Eurasian Pygmy Owls (Glaucidium passerinum) along with sex- and age-specific spatial distribution in relation to fluctuating main prey abundance (voles) and conspecific density using a 15-year dataset. In low vole abundance years, increasing conspecific density reduced the total prey number stored by an owl, suggesting high costs of exploitative competition. The distance between the stores of nearest neighbours was greater when both were females, suggesting that the spatial avoidance is driven by sex-specific competition. However, food stores of females had a larger amount of prey items, especially when the nearest neighbour was of the same sex. The number of stores hoarded by an owl increased with increasing conspecific densities. Distributing the prey items to multiple store-sites instead of one (shifting from larder-hoarding towards scatter-hoarding) can help to reduce the overall loss to potential pilfering when conspecific density is high. These results combined suggest that high conspecific density inflames sex-specific interference competition, rather than solely exploitative competition, and in turn drives the observed sex-specific spatial distribution. Adopting a sex-specific spatial distribution according to hoarding and aggressive behaviour can be a way to reduce the severity of intraspecific competition locally and could have cascading effects on the prey community.

The loss and subdivision of habitat into smaller and more spatially isolated units due to human actions has been shown to adversely affect species worldwide. We examined how changes in old forest cover during eight years were associated with the cumulative number of fledged offspring at the end of study period in Eurasian treecreepers ( Certhia familiaris ) in Central Finland. We were specifically interested in whether the initial level of old forest cover moderated this relation. We applied a flexible and powerful approach, latent growth curve modelling in a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework, to create trajectories describing changes in old forest cover through time, and studied how this change at both the territory core and landscape scales impacted fledging numbers. Our main finding was that at the territory core scale the negative impact of habitat loss on fledging numbers was lessened by the higher levels of initial forest cover, while no association was found at the landscape scale. Our study highlights a powerful, but currently under-utilised methodology among ecologists that can provide important information about biological responses to changes in the environment, providing a mechanistic way to study how land cover dynamics can affect species responses.

Forests are widely recognized as major providers of ecosystem services, including timber, other forest products, recreation, regulation of water, soil and air quality, and climate change mitigation. Extensive tracts of boreal forests are actively managed for timber production, but actions aimed at increasing timber yields also affect other forest functions and services. Here, we present an overview of the environmental impacts of forest management from the perspective of ecosystem services. We show how prevailing forestry practices may have substantial but diverse effects on the various ecosystem services provided by boreal forests. Several aspects of these processes remain poorly known and warrant a greater role in future studies, including the role of community structure. Conflicts among different interests related to boreal forests are most likely to occur, but the concept of ecosystem services may provide a useful framework for identifying and resolving these conflicts.

Most studies on intraspecific competition, i.e., competition among individuals of the same species, have been conducted during the breeding season. Yet, at northern latitudes, intraspecific competition is expected to be particularly strong under the harsh weather conditions of the non-breeding season with limited number of resources available per individual. We studied the food-hoarding behaviour of wintering Eurasian Pygmy Owls (Glaucidium passerinum) along with sex- and age-specific spatial distribution in relation to fluctuating main prey abundance (voles) and conspecific density using a 15-year dataset. In low vole abundance years, increasing conspecific density reduced the total prey number stored by an owl, suggesting high costs of exploitative competition. The distance between the stores of nearest neighbours was greater when both were females, suggesting that the spatial avoidance is driven by sex-specific competition. However, food stores of females had a larger amount of prey items, especially when the nearest neighbour was of the same sex. The number of stores hoarded by an owl increased with increasing conspecific densities. Distributing the prey items to multiple storesites instead of one (shifting from larder-hoarding towards scatter-hoarding) can help to reduce the overall loss to potential pilfering when conspecific density is high. These results combined suggest that high conspecific density inflames sex-specific interference competition, rather than solely exploitative competition, and in turn drives the observed sex-specific spatial distribution. Adopting a sex-specific spatial distribution according to hoarding and aggressive behaviour can be a way to reduce the severity of intraspecific competition locally and could have cascading effects on the prey community.

1. There is great interest on the effects of habitat fragmentation, whereby habitat is lost and the spatial configuration of remaining habitat patches is altered, on individual breeding performance. However, we still lack consensus of how this important process affects reproductive success, and whether its effects are mainly due to reduced fecundity or nestling survival. 2. The main reason for this may be the way that habitat fragmentation has been previously modelled. Studies have treated habitat loss and altered spatial configuration as two independent processes instead of as one hierarchical and interdependent process, and therefore have not been able to consider the relative direct and indirect effects of habitat loss and altered spatial configuration. 3. We investigated how habitat (i.e. old forest) fragmentation, caused by intense forest harvesting at the territory and landscape scales, is associated with the number of fledged offspring of an area-sensitive passerine, the Eurasian treecreeper (Certhia familiaris). We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to examine the complex hierarchical associations between habitat loss and altered spatial configuration on the number of fledged offspring, by controlling for individual condition and weather conditions during incubation. 4. Against generally held expectations, treecreeper reproductive success did not show a significant association with habitat fragmentation measured at the territory scale. Instead, our analyses suggested that an increasing amount of habitat at the landscape scale caused a significant increase in nest predation rates, leading to reduced reproductive success. This effect operated directly on nest predation rates, instead of acting indirectly through altered spatial configuration. 5. Because habitat amount and configuration are inherently strongly collinear, particularly when multiple scales are considered, our study demonstrates the usefulness of a SEM approach for hierarchical partitioning of habitat amount vs. habitat configuration in landscape ecology that may have bearing on biological conclusions.