Our study aims to assess the effects of different silvicultural
practices on forest biodiversity indicators in the Mediterranean
region of Catalonia (NE Spain), considering the intensity of the
silvicultural treatments through the amount of removed basal
area. We performed an analysis at the stand level using a large
data set based on thousands of inventory plots of the Third
Spanish National Forest Inventory (3SNFI; Ministerio de
Medio Ambiente, 1997–2007), which have increasingly
incorporated different measures related to biodiversity and
now contains a large amount of valuable information on the
state of the tree and shrub species in the region. Specifically, the
aim of this study is to analyse the effects of regeneration cuts
and stand improvement treatments on six biodiversity
indicators (snags, large-diameter trees, shrub abundance, shrub
species richness, tree species richness and tree species
diversity) obtained from the 3SNFI plots in Catalonia. These
indicators were selected because they could be estimated from
the information available in the 3SNFI and because they are
widely used in the literature (Marrugan, 1989; Noss, 1990;
Alberdi et al., 2005). We conducted two major analyses: (i)
comparing indicators of biodiversity between managed and
unmanaged stands, and (ii) evaluating the effects of each of the
silvicultural treatments with different intensity on the
biodiversity indicators, testing the hypothesis that the intermediate
disturbances resulting from management increase
Mediterranean forest diversity.