Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Insect Conservation https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-017-0028-6 ORIGINAL PAPER “Primeval forest relict beetles” of Central Europe: a set of 168 umbrella species for the protection of primeval forest remnants Andreas Eckelt 1  · Jörg Müller 2,3  · Ulrich Bense 4  · Hervé Brustel 5  · Heinz Bußler 6  · Yannick Chittaro 7  · Lukas Cizek 8  · Adrienne Frei 9  · Erwin Holzer 10  · Marcin Kadej 11  · Manfred Kahlen 1  · Frank Köhler 12  · Georg Möller 13  · Hans Mühle 14  · Andreas Sanchez 7  · Ulrich Schafrath 15  · Jürgen Schmidl 16  · Adrian Smolis 11  · Alexander Szallies 17  · Tamás Németh 18  · Claus Wurst 19  · Simon Thorn 2  · Rune Haubo Bojesen Christensen 20  · Sebastian Seibold 21 Received: 24 February 2017 / Accepted: 23 October 2017 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Abstract Identifcation of forest stands with priority for the conservation of biodiversity is of particular importance in landscapes with a long cultural and agricultural history, such as Central Europe. A group of species with a high indicator value for the naturalness of forest ecosystems are saproxylic insects. Some of these species, especially within the order Coleoptera, have been described as primeval forests relicts. Here, we compiled a list of 168 “primeval forest relict species” of saproxylic beetles based on expert knowledge. These species can serve as focal and umbrella species for forest conservation in Central Europe. They were selected because of their dependence on the continuous presence of primeval forest habitat features, such as over-mature trees, high amounts of dead wood, and dead wood diversity, as well as their absence in managed Central European forests. These primeval forest relict species showed a moderately strong clumping pattern within the phylogeny of beetles, as indicated by phylogenetic signal testing using the D-statistic. When we controlled for phylogenetic relatedness, an ordinal linear model revealed that large body size and preference for dead wood and trees of large diameter are the main characteristics of these species. This list of species can be used to identify forest stands of conservation value throughout Central Europe, to prioritize conservation and to raise public awareness for conservation issues related to primeval forests. Keywords Saproxylic beetles · Old growth · Primeval forest relicts · Habitat continuity · Megatree continuity · Forest conservation · Flagship species · Umbrella species Introduction The anthropogenic pressure on forests in Central Europe has a continuous history of more than a millennium (Grove 2002). After centuries of heavy deforestation, the growing stock of forests has been steadily restored since the estab- lishment of modern forestry in the late eighteenth century (Whitehouse 2006). However, this increase in growing stock was accompanied by forest management strategies that structurally homogenized forests and led to dramatic altera- tions in species composition. Naturally broadleaf-dominated forests were turned into conifer-dominated plantations (Dirkx 1998; Radkau 2007), and closed forests replaced most natural dynamic open and semi-open woodlands (Mik- lin and Cizek 2014). Over-mature trees, which had often survived as pollards or in wood pastures, and other open wooded habitats, were compromised by increased canopy closure or their deliberate removal (Buse et al. 2008; Sebek et al. 2016). These alterations of forests selectively afected those wood-inhabiting species with life history and specifc habitat traits that make them susceptible to specifc struc- tural changes (Seibold et al. 2015). In particular, saproxylic beetle species of lowland forests, species living on broadleaf trees, species of large body size, species living in dead wood of large diameter and species living in sunny dead-wood habitats have sufered from human-induced forest changes and are thus today considered as threatened in the Red Lists. Today, only a few forest stands that have continuously possessed primeval habitat features remain in Central Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10841-017-0028-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Andreas Eckelt a.eckelt@tiroler-landesmuseen.at Extended author information available on the last page of the article