DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2d6h4
title: Data from: The impacts of climate change and disturbance on spatio-temporal trajectories of biodiversity in a temperate forest landscape

description: The ongoing changes to climate challenge the conservation of forest
 biodiversity. Yet, in thermally limited systems, such as temperate
 forests, not all species groups might be affected negatively. Furthermore,
 simultaneous changes in the disturbance regime have the potential to
 mitigate climate-related impacts on forest species. Here, we (i)
 investigated the potential long-term effect of climate change on
 biodiversity in a mountain forest landscape, (ii) assessed the effects of
 different disturbance frequencies, severities and sizes and (iii)
 identified biodiversity hotspots at the landscape scale to facilitate
 conservation management. We employed the model iLand to dynamically
 simulate the tree vegetation on 13 865 ha of the Kalkalpen National Park
 in Austria over 1000 years, and investigated 36 unique combinations of
 different disturbance and climate scenarios. We used simulated changes in
 tree cover and composition as well as projected temperature and
 precipitation to predict changes in the diversity of Araneae, Carabidae,
 ground vegetation, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Mollusca, saproxylic beetles,
 Symphyta and Syrphidae, using empirical response functions. Our findings
 revealed widely varying responses of biodiversity indicators to climate
 change. Five indicators showed overall negative effects, with Carabidae,
 saproxylic beetles and tree species diversity projected to decrease by
 more than 33%. Six indicators responded positively to climate change, with
 Hymenoptera, Mollusca and Syrphidae diversity projected to increase more
 than twofold. Disturbances were generally beneficial for the studied
 indicators of biodiversity. Our results indicated that increasing
 disturbance frequency and severity have a positive effect on biodiversity,
 while increasing disturbance size has a moderately negative effect.
 Spatial hotspots of biodiversity were currently found in low- to
 mid-elevation areas of the mountainous study landscape, but shifted to
 higher-elevation zones under changing climate conditions. Synthesis and
 applications. Our results highlight that intensifying disturbance regimes
 may alleviate some of the impacts of climate change on forest
 biodiversity. However, the projected shift in biodiversity hotspots is a
 challenge for static conservation areas. In this regard, overlapping
 hotspots under current and expected future conditions highlight priority
 areas for robust conservation management.
description: climate_ARPEGEOne of the A1B climate files that we used to simulate Kalkalpen National Park. The spatial location of the climate tables was defined in the file "environment".NP_ARPEGE.sqliteclimate_ICTPOne of the A1B climate files that we used to simulate Kalkalpen National Park. The spatial location of the climate tables was defined in the file "environment".NP_ICTP.sqliteclimate_REMOOne of the A1B climate files that we used to simulate Kalkalpen National Park. The spatial location of the climate tables was defined in the file "environment".NP_REMO.sqliteenvironmentThe environment defines the climate table to be used as well as soil conditions. The spatial location for each id can be found in the file "resource_units".resource unitsContains the locations of resource units (see file "environment").stand polygonsSpatial layer for the initialization of trees and saplings (see files trees 1999 and saplings 1999).trees 1999Tree vegetation within stand polygons (see file "stand polygons" for polygon locations).saplings 1999Sapling vegetation within stand polygons (see file "stand polygons" for polygon locations).taxonomic groupsInventory data for species numbers of taxonomic groups as well as associated climate and tree vegetation. Inventories were conducted in Bavaria.taxonomic_groups.txtground vegetationInventory data for species numbers of the ground vegetation as well as associated climate and tree vegetation. Inventories were conducted in the Austrian Alps (FLORALP database).ground_vegetation.txt