LAUSR

Large areas of formerly oak-dominated woodlands are currently managed for timber products, and if they are used in a conservation-oriented way, they are often abandoned and left to become wilderness. We focused on the situation when an oak woodland is still partly managed as an ancient game park and partly abandoned as a nature conservation amendment. We studied this effect using a multi-taxa approach with lichens, fungi and beetles and investigated their response to the changing patterns in canopy openness, dead wood distribution and host tree conditions. The study was done in the Hradec Králové region of the Czech Republic. We found that the maintenance of canopy openness, as determined by management, was the primary driver influencing species composition. Canopy closure led to homogenization of the beetle and lichen communities and the loss of species. Fungi were mainly driven by the amount of dead wood, and abandonment favored their species richness. The creation of a new wilderness was only profitable for fungi, and the maintenance of canopy openness was an important driver for most of the studied taxa (i.e., biodiversity maintenance). Canopy openness and the presence of veteran trees could be used as an indicator of a management history that helps conserve biodiversity. Appropriate conditions for all taxa studied could be fulfilled using wood pasturing or game keeping in combination with dead tree retention.