Conserving alpha and beta diversity in wood-production landscapes.

International demand for wood and other forest products continues to grow rapidly, and uncertainties remain about how animal communities will respond to intensifying resource extraction associated with woody bioenergy production. We examined changes in alpha- and beta-diversity of four taxonomic groups (bats, bees, birds, reptiles) across a large portion of wood production landscapes in the southeastern United States, a biodiversity hotspot that is one of the principal suppliers of woody biomass globally. We sampled across a spatial gradient of paired forest land-uses that allowed us to evaluate biological community changes resulting from biomass harvests: residue removal following clearcuts, mid-rotation thinning, and reduced stand age from short-rotation practices, respectively. Short-rotation practices and residue removal following clearcuts were associated with reduced alpha-diversity (-14.1 and -13.9 species, respectively) and lower beta-diversity (i.e., Jaccard dissimilarity) between land-use pairs (0.46 and 0.50, respectively), whereas mid-rotation thinning increased alpha- (+3.5 species) and beta-diversity (0.59). We found that over the course of a stand rotation in a single location, biomass harvesting generally led to less biodiversity. Cross-taxa responses to resource extraction were poorly predicted by alpha-diversity: correlations in responses between taxonomic groups were highly variable in direction (-0.2 to 0.4) with large uncertainties. In contrast, beta-diversity patterns were highly consistent and predictable across taxa, where correlations in responses between taxonomic groups were all positive (0.05 to 0.4) with more narrow uncertainties. Beta-diversity may therefore be a more reliable and information-rich indicator than alpha-diversity in understanding animal community response to landscape change. Patterns in beta-diversity were primarily driven by turnover instead of simple species loss or gain, indicating that wood extraction is generating habitats that support different biological communities. Our work provides an unprecedented empirical analysis of the effects of alternative energy development on biodiversity and insights into the critical role of beta-diversity in biodiversity monitoring. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.