Table 2 Example of a management plan of a fictive temperate forest landscape using the functional complex network approach

The fictive 100,000 ha forested temperate landscape is a simplification of a real landscape found in southern Quebec that is fragmented by croplands, roads and a few small urban areas (based on Aquilué 2018). It includes a large public forest of 30,000 ha and 300 privately owned forests aggregating 5000 forest stands (with mean area values indicated in Table 3). We selected 15 common temperate forest species to estimate the composition of both individual stands and ownership, considering that most stands (75%) have between 1 and 4 species (up to 10) and most ownerships (75%) have between 3 and 8 species (up to 12). We assumed equal species abundances on all stands/ownerships and gathered the values of those functional traits contributing to climate change adaptation and disturbance coping for the fifteen-tree species selected (Aubin et al. 2012). Response diversity and functional redundancy indexes (based on species abundances and their functional traits) were calculated following Laliberté and Legendre (2010) and Ricotta et al. (2016) and they were computed at the three working scales (Fig. 3; Table 3). Functional connectivity, centrality and modularity were estimated at the landscape scale before any possible intervention was implemented (Table 3; multiple indexes for these properties are available in the network theory literature (e.g., Newman 2006 and Saura 2010)). As functional diversity, connectivity and centrality were relatively low, a few silvicultural interventions were likely to improve the two functional and three spatial network indices. For this simplified exercise, we added a total of 14,000 new mature trees belonging to 5 species characterized by complementary functional traits on key central forest stands or ownerships, and/or in those less functionally rich stands/properties to the landscape, so to increase both functional diversity and redundancy. Also, we established new forest stands with these 5 new tree species in central areas without forests (Fig. 4). This promoted an increase in both functional diversity and connectivity in the neighbouring forested landscape, while network centrality also improved (Table 3).