The European Union (EU) set clear climate change mitigation targets to reach climate neutrality, accounting for forests and their woody biomass resources. We investigated the consequences of increased harvest demands resulting from EU climate targets. We analysed the impacts on national policy objectives for forest ecosystem services and biodiversity through empirical forest simulation and multi-objective optimization methods. We show that key European timber-producing countries – Finland, Sweden, Germany (Bavaria) – cannot fulfil the increased harvest demands linked to the ambitious 1.5°C target. Potentials for harvest increase only exists in the studied region Norway. However, focusing on EU climate targets conflicts with several national policies and causes adverse effects on multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity. We argue that the role of forests and their timber resources in achieving climate targets and societal decarbonization should not be overstated. Our study provides insight for other European countries challenged by conflicting policies and supports policymakers.

Summary: With biodiversity facing threats, there is a need to improve reserve selection procedures. However, detailed information about different biodiversity measures (e.g. species richness) at potential sites is often lacking, and selecting areas that protect most biodiversity is difficult. To simplify matters, biodiversity surrogate species, that is, species associated with higher biodiversity than average, have been used for area selection. However, consensus about the performance of the surrogate species concept is lacking, and there are few studies investigating potential differences in the effectiveness of multiple predators as surrogates for biodiversity over large spatial scales. We evaluated two avian predators, the northern goshawk Accipiter gentilis and the Ural owl Strix uralensis, as surrogates for biodiversity in the boreal forest biome in Western Finland. We used a study design including nest sites and two reference sites for each nest, the diversity of birds and wood‐decaying fungi (polypores). We assessed simultaneously whether surrogacy persisted at the landscape level while moving from one vegetation zone to another. We generally found more birds and polypores around the nest sites for both goshawks and Ural owls than at their respective reference sites. However, the goshawk outperformed the Ural owl. Additionally, although biodiversity was found to decrease at the landscape scale as a result of a decrease in vegetation complexity with increasing longitude, the surrogacy efficiency of the raptors remained unchanged. Synthesis and applications. These findings suggest that the surrogate species concept applied to raptors may be an efficient addition to methods for identifying areas of conservation priority, even across vegetation zones. We conclude that protecting areas around raptor nests is a method to consider in order to halt forest biodiversity loss. Finally, sampling biodiversity along diversity and landscape gradients can improve the necessary assessment of surrogate species.

Social behaviours are highly variable between species, populations and individuals. However, it is contentious whether behavioural variations are primarily moulded by the environment, caused by genetic differences, or a combination of both. Here we establish that biparental care, a complex social behaviour that involves rearing of young by both parents, differs between closely related populations, and then test two potential sources of variation in parental behaviour between populations: ambient environment and genetic differentiation. We use 2904 hours behavioural data from 10 geographically distinct Kentish (Charadrius alexandrinus) and snowy plover (C. nivosus) populations in America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to test these two sources of behavioural variation. We show that local ambient temperature has a significant influence on parental care: with extreme heat (above 40°C) total incubation (i.e. % of time the male or female incubated the nest) increased, and female share (% female share of incubation) decreased. By contrast, neither genetic differences between populations, nor geographic distances predicted total incubation or female's share of incubation. These results suggest that the local environment has a stronger influence on a social behaviour than genetic differentiation, at least between populations of closely related species.

Purpose of Review: Boreal forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services that are important to society. The boreal biome is experiencing the highest rates of warming on the planet and increasing demand for forest products. Here, we review how changes in climate and its associated extreme events (e.g., windstorms) are putting at risk the capacity of these forests to continue providing ecosystem services. We further analyze the role of forest management to increase forest resilience to the combined effects of climate change and extreme events.Recent Findings: Enhancing forest resilience recently gained a lot of interest from theoretical perspective. Yet, it remains unclear how to translate the theoretical knowledge into practice and how to operationalize boreal forest management to maintain forest ecosystem services and functions under changing global conditions. We identify and summarize the main management approaches (natural disturbance emulation, landscape functional zoning, functional complex network, and climate-smart forestry) that can promote forest resilience.Summary: We review the concept of resilience in forest sciences, how extreme events may put boreal forests at risk, and how management can alleviate or promote such risks. We found that the combined effects of increased temperatures and extreme events are having negative impacts on forests. Then, we discuss how the main management approaches could enhance forest resilience and multifunctionality (simultaneous provision of high levels of multiple ecosystem services and species habitats). Finally, we identify the complementary strengths of individual approaches and report challenges on how to implement them in practice.