Success of a deadwood enrichment strategy in production forests depends on stand type and management intensity

- Four years of sustainable management significantly increased deadwood amounts.
- Deadwood enrichment was strongly influenced by harvesting intensity.
- Managed and unmanaged forests became similar in deadwood amounts.
- Active deadwood enrichment is achievable in sustainable forest management.

The increasing demand for wood products increases the anthropogenic pressure on biodiversity in forests. Thereby integrative nature conservation strategies, allowing for both, wood production and biodiversity conservation, increase in importance. While many of such strategies are now implemented, the success is often unclear. We evaluated the success of a deadwood enrichment strategy in a large hardwood production forest shortly (four and nine years) after its implementation. We compared plot wise data of deadwood amounts in managed stands of an even aged high forest and forest nature reserves before and after the implementation of the strategy, and used generalized additive boosting models to identify major drivers of deadwood amounts and deadwood enrichment. Deadwood amounts before and after the implementation of the strategy were affected by stand age, natural tree mortality and tree species composition. The highest amounts of deadwood were found in stands around 100 years old, with a high natural mortality and a high percentage of deciduous trees. Harvesting intensity was a strong driver of deadwood enrichment. Besides that we found smaller differences between managed and unmanaged forests after the implementation. We conclude that active deadwood enrichment can be a valuable tool to increase deadwood amounts in production forests.