Abstract Climate change has direct and indirect impacts on forest ecosystems worldwide. In this context, changing site conditions and altered disturbance regimes as well as
forest management responses are challenging the conservation of biodiversity in forests.
Climate-induced dynamics and uncertainties related to future forest ecosystem development are calling into question current conservation strategies and concepts. Given the
longevity of trees, slow development rates of forest ecosystems and slow migration rates of
many forest species, the planning of adaptation measures in response to climate change are
especially difficult though highly important for forest biodiversity conservation. This paper
introduces a special issue with eight contributions which deal with a variety of aspects of
forest biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change. More specifically, the papers
address direct impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity, adaptation measures for
forest and conservation management, as well as resulting challenges for conservation
strategies and concepts. In conclusion, adaptation measures that enhance diversity and
provide different options for future action, thereby maintaining ecosystems’ resilience, as
well as conservation management operating on a landscape level, are promoted as being
beneficial for coping with uncertainties related to climate change. Adaptive management,
which constantly reviews conservation goals and measures, and which takes into account
both science-based and local ecological knowledge on climate change can be a valuable
tool to inform decisions for forest biodiversity conservation.