We observe an ongoing biodiversity decline and mitigating this biodiversity crisis is highly demanded by science, society, and politics. Therefore, multitrophic and evidence-based scientific approaches across multiple scales are needed. Biodiversity is affected by both natural disturbance and forest management at different temporal and spatial scales, with consequences for ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Accordingly, species diversity in forests is not evenly distributed, but dynamic across temporal and spatial scales. Stochastic processes of niche distribution are not only present in primeval forests but will also increasingly become important in managed landscapes due to climate change induced extreme events such as windthrow, fire, or drought. These build the basis for natural processes that beget biodiversity. The case of the Bavarian forest demonstrates that natural disturbances and subsequent successional pathways across large areas result in a dynamic occurrence of patches of low and high diversity. In naturally disturbed areas, as well as in managed landscapes, both rarity and commonness exist as consequence of species extinctions and biogeographic processes. The quality of naturally evolved biodiversity is, however, different from e.g. the maximised biodiversity fostered by biodiversity management. While we do not need every species everywhere, we do need strategies that guarantee the distribution of different successional stages at the landscape scale in a configuration that allows the coexistence of most species. This will be important to achieve resilient forest ecosystems and hence maintain ecosystem functions and services over a longer time-scale. We therefore advocate the need for large forest landscapes that eventually should be – against all odds – released from management in the future. Such large unmanaged landscapes not only will result in more dense populations of highly demanding species that also can spread out to managed landscapes, but will also serve as long-term references of natural forest processes and their benefits for biodiversity. One of the main challenges will be to develop strategies that aligns scientific evidence with the needs of society and policy makers.