Disturbances are considered driving forces of forest development, however, very little is known about the disturbance histories of natural forests in Central Europe. As part of a larger study on the long-term dynamics, the disturbance regime was studied of a spruce-fir-beech virgin forest situated in Austria. The approaches presented here included age structure analysis, development of a disturbance chronology based on dendroecological analysis, and calculation of gap (size) distribution and gap formation and closure rates using a time series of aerial photographs. The majority of the gaps were smaller than 400 m(2). However gap-formation rates were significantly higher than gap-closure rates. Furthermore, the discontinuous age class distributions and the occurrence of peaks in the disturbance chronology indicated the occurrence of intermediate disturbances (400 m(2) to 0.5 ha) or possibly synchronized fine-scale disturbances and their importance for stand dynamics. Our results underline that large protected areas of natural forests are immensely valuable for maintaining and studying forest dynamics.