Preserving biological diversity in managed forests: a meeting point for ecology and forestry

The accelerated loss of biological diversity is causing concern, for this reason its preservation has emerged as an objective in forest management. Extending conservation methods to managed lands is problematic. Biological diversity is a complex concept that includes many different aspects of ecosystems, therefore an operational measure of biodiversity is unlikely to be found. In addition, its relationship with stability and resilience has been a subject of long debate in ecology and remains confusing. We review the existing approaches for the conservation of biological diversity. Most of them are derived from population biology and emphasize the species richness component of biological diversity. These methods do not account for ecosystem processes and economical constraints which make them inappropriate for implementation in managed lands. On the other hand, forestry and ecology have historically evolved independently and makes the understanding between managers and ecologists even more difficult. We propose four directions for further research that would help to couple forestry and ecology showing one example (Pacific Northwest) in which considerable research efforts have been made making forestry and conservation compatible. In the other example provided (Mediterranean basin), we show that a certain level of management is required for the preservation of biological diversity. Since it is urgent to take action, methods for conservation biology play a key role as first approaches, but alone are not sufficient to account for the preservation of diversity in managed lands and should be complemented with alternative approaches that account for economical constraints and ecosystem level processes.