Is a multifunctional forest more resilient to disturbances?

Managing forests for resilience has become an important research area in response to escalating climate change and intensifying disturbances. However, it remains unclear whether emphasizing resilience influences the provision of ecosystem services and the overall degree of forest multifunctionality. We hypothesized that forests with higher multifunctionality are also more resilient to natural disturbances—namely, they can better withstand the disturbance and recover—given that factors like species diversity and structural complexity may support both resilience and multifunctionality. We studied this trade-off in a Central European forest landscape using forest landscape and disturbance model iLand. We simulated multidecadal forest development under five management narratives ranging from the emphasis on biomass production through the low-intensity management promoting natural dynamics to unmanaged development. Individual narratives differed in terms of the proportion of species planted after harvest, rotation period, retention of mature trees after harvests, level of control of ungulate populations and sanitary removal of dead and infested trees to prevent bark beetle outbreaks. This experiment was driven by historical climate data and eight climate projections of four climate models and two RCP scenarios. Forest multifunctionality encompassed wood production (represented by annual wood increment and harvested wood volume), biodiversity (Shannon-index and deadwood amount), water protection function (leaf area index and standing volume) and climate regulation function (net ecosystem production and carbon stock). Forest resilience was evaluated through the overall level of disturbed growing stock and the recovery time from a singular disturbance impact. To assess the potential trade-offs, we confronted the newly proposed multifunctionality score with individual resilience indicators.