Search

Balancing economic, ecological, and social values has long been a challenge in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, where conflict over timber harvest and old-growth habitat on public lands has been contentious for the past several decades. The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted two decades ago to guide management on federal lands, is currently being revised as the region searches for a balance between sustainable timber yields and habitat for sensitive species. In addition, climate change imposes a high degree of uncertainty on future forest productivity, sustainability of timber harvest, wildfire risk, and species habitat. We evaluated the long-term, landscape-scale trade-offs among carbon (C) storage, timber yield, and old forest habitat given projected climate change and shifts in forest management policy across 2.1 million hectares of forests in the Oregon Coast Range. Projections highlight the divergence between private and public lands under business-as-usual forest management, where private industrial forests are heavily harvested and many public (especially federal) lands increase C and old forest over time but provide little timber. Three alternative management scenarios altering the amount and type of timber harvest show widely varying levels of ecosystem C and old-forest habitat. On federal lands, ecological forestry practices also allowed a simultaneous increase in old forest and natural early-seral habitat. The ecosystem C implications of shifts away from current practices were large, with current practices retaining up to 105 Tg more C than the alternative scenarios by the end of the century. Our results suggest climate change is likely to increase forest productivity by 30-41% and total ecosystem C storage by 11-15% over the next century as warmer winter temperatures allow greater forest productivity in cooler months. These gains in C storage are unlikely to be offset by wildfire under climate change, due to the legacy of management and effective fire suppression. Our scenarios of future conditions can inform policy makers, land managers, and the public about the potential effects of land management alternatives, climate change, and the trade-offs that are inherent to management and policy in the region., (© 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.)

Native forests can support wild and domestic herbivores, but their nutritional potential of understory vascular plants is rarely explored. We analysed the composition of understory plant species and their biochemical components to reveal the nutritional potential of forest types (deciduous, evergreen, mixed) and their associated open-lands (e.g. grasslands in forestlands) in Northern Patagonia. We proposed an approach combining our data (e.g. plant composition, occurrence frequency) with bibliographic research (e.g. Scopus database) to develop our findings. Data were evaluated using descriptive statistical analyses and multivariate analyses. This study presents the nutritional values for the 20 pivotal species under examination. The results highlight the significant impact of taxonomic families on nutritional profiles, where the species that presented the most relevant occurrence frequency: the herbs T. officinale (60.4 % of total occurrence frequency-TOF) and T. repens (47.9 % TOF), the graminoid H. lanatus (58 % TOF), and the fern B. penna marina (44.4 % TOF). Multivariate analyses showed that the first two PCA axes explained 76.1 % (p = 0.001) and 10.5 % (p = 1.000) of forest type variation, with ñire forests and open-lands having the highest palatable plant coverage. Biochemical PCA axes explained 52.1 % (p = 0.024) and 22.5 % (p = 0.874) of the variation, distinguishing species by protein content and structural components. The deciduous forests exhibited the highest coverage of palatable plants, while target plants with low palatability and high coverage were predominantly found in evergreen forest types. The confirmed presence of pivotal species across forest types and open-lands underscores its nutritional potential, characterised by highly digestible dry matter, crude protein, highly digestible non-nitrogenous nutrients, and relative feed value. Considering their widespread distribution and nutritional factors, the native and non-native plants merit attention due to their pivotal nutritional potential.

Forest habitats are critical for biodiversity, ecosystem services, human livelihoods, and well-being. Capacity to conduct theoretical and applied forest ecology research addressing direct (e.g., deforestation) and indirect (e.g., climate change) anthropogenic pressures has benefited considerably from new field- and statistical-techniques. We used machine learning and bibliometric structural topic modelling to identify 20 latent topics comprising four principal fields from a corpus of 16,952 forest ecology/forestry articles published in eight ecology and five forestry journals between 2010 and 2022. Articles published per year increased from 820 in 2010 to 2,354 in 2021, shifting toward more applied topics. Publications from China and some countries in North America and Europe dominated, with relatively fewer articles from some countries in West and Central Africa and West Asia, despite globally important forest resources. Most study sites were in some countries in North America, Central Asia, and South America, and Australia. Articles utilizing R statistical software predominated, increasing from 29.5% in 2010 to 71.4% in 2022. The most frequently used packages included lme4, vegan, nlme, MuMIn, ggplot2, car, MASS, mgcv, multcomp and raster. R was more often used in forest ecology than applied forestry articles. R software offers advantages in script and workflow-sharing compared to other statistical packages. Our findings demonstrate that the disciplines of forest ecology/forestry are expanding both in number and scope, aided by more sophisticated statistical tools, to tackle the challenges of redressing forest habitat loss and the socio-economic impacts of deforestation.

The measurement of forest structure has evolved steadily due to advances in technology, methodology, and theory. Such advances have greatly increased our capacity to describe key forest structural elements and resulted in a range of measurement approaches from traditional analog tools such as measurement tapes to highly derived and computationally intensive methods such as advanced remote sensing tools (e.g., lidar, radar). This assortment of measurement approaches results in structural metrics unique to each method, with the caveat that metrics may be biased or constrained by the measurement approach taken. While forest structural diversity (FSD) metrics foster novel research opportunities, understanding how they are measured or derived, limitations of the measurement approach taken, as well as their biological interpretation is crucial for proper application. We review the measurement of forest structure and structural diversity—an umbrella term that includes quantification of the distribution of functional and biotic components of forests. We consider how and where these approaches can be used, the role of technology in measuring structure, how measurement impacts extend beyond research, and current limitations and potential opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest roads are an important part of forest management, both in terms of cost and impact on surrounding ecosystems. Existing tools to simulate the construction of forest roads have been designed for tactical or operational planning purposes, for relatively small areas (<10 000 ha) and small-scale topographic information. Hence, no forest road simulation tool properly exists to assist forest landscape ecology and management research. Here, we present the Forest Roads Simulation (FRS) extension for the LANDIS-II model—a spatially explicit landscape simulation model of forest succession and disturbances. The FRS extension simulates forest road networks via a least-cost path algorithm accounting for landscape structure, decision inputs, and forest road types. We demonstrate the accuracy with which the FRS extension reproduces several key characteristics of existing road networks in two managed regions in Quebec, Canada: road density, road position, and fragmentation of the landscape. The FRS extension is easy to parameterize, proposing many options for researchers to simulate forest road networks at a strategic level in managed landscapes. It can tackle new research questions investigating the effects of forest roads within management strategies, such as the cost of road construction and habitat fragmentation, across large management units and long planning horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The measurement of forest structure has evolved steadily due to advances in technology, methodology, and theory. Such advances have greatly increased our capacity to describe key forest structural elements and resulted in a range of measurement approaches from traditional analog tools such as measurement tapes to highly derived and computationally intensive methods such as advanced remote sensing tools (e.g., lidar, radar). This assortment of measurement approaches results in structural metrics unique to each method, with the caveat that metrics may be biased or constrained by the measurement approach taken. While forest structural diversity (FSD) metrics foster novel research opportunities, understanding how they are measured or derived, limitations of the measurement approach taken, as well as their biological interpretation is crucial for proper application. We review the measurement of forest structure and structural diversity—an umbrella term that includes quantification of the distribution of functional and biotic components of forests. We consider how and where these approaches can be used, the role of technology in measuring structure, how measurement impacts extend beyond research, and current limitations and potential opportunities for future research.

Sufficient plant-available water is one of the most important requirements for vital, stable, and well-growing forest stands. In the face of climate change, there are various approaches to derive recommendations considering tree species selection based on plant-available water provided by measurements or simulations. Owing to the small-parcel management of Central European forests as well as small-spatial variation of soil and stand properties, in situ data collection for individual forest stands of large areas is not feasible, considering time and cost effort. This problem can be addressed using physically based modeling, aiming to numerically simulate the water balance. In this study, we parameterized, calibrated, and verified the hydrological multidimensional WaSiM-ETH model to assess the water balance at a spatial resolution of 30 m in a German forested catchment area (136.4 km2) for the period 2000–2021 using selected in situ data, remote sensing products, and total runoff. Based on the model output, drought-sensitive parameters, such as the difference between potential and effective stand transpiration (Tdiff) and the water balance, were deduced from the model, analyzed, and evaluated. Results show that the modeled evapotranspiration (ET) correlated significantly (R2 = 0.80) with the estimated ET using MODIS data (MOD16A2GFv006). Compared with observed daily, monthly, and annual runoff data, the model shows a good performance (R2: 0.70|0.77|0.73; Kling–Gupta efficiency: 0.59|0.62|0.83; volumetric efficiency: 0.52|0.60|0.83). The comparison with in situ data from a forest monitoring plot, established at the end of 2020, indicated good agreement between observed and simulated interception and soil water content. According to our results, WaSiM-ETH is a potential supplement for forest management, owing to its multidimensionality and the ability to model soil water balance for large areas at comparable high spatial resolution. The outputs offer, compared to non-distributed models (like LWF-Brook90), spatial differentiability, which is important for small-scale parceled forests, regarding stand structure and soil properties. Due to the spatial component offered, additional verification possibilities are feasible allowing a reliable and profound verification of the model and its parameterization.

uly 24, 2022 is the anniversary date of the birth of Natalya Vasilievna Lukina – corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, doctor of biological sciences, professor, prominent scientist in forest ecology, forest science and forest soil science, director of the Center for Forest Ecology and Productivity of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences on forests, editor-in-chief of the journals “Russian Journal of Forest Science” and “Forest Science Issues”. The article summarizes the main directions of scientific, scientific-organizational and expert activities of N. V. Lukina.

The article includes a biographical essay of Professor Akira Osawa (Japan) and a brief analysis of his scientific legacy. A. Osawa was born and raised in the post-war period, which became the period of the formation of a sovereign Japanese state and its tremendous economic growth (Japanese economic miracle). He was educated and received a Doctor of Philosophy Degree at the prestigious Yale University (USA), where he gained the first experience of an international scientific cooperation. Knowledge in the fields of general and forest ecology, forestry and environmental protection A. Osawa successfully applied carrying out research projects, preparing his articles and books, reviewing manuscripts of the other authors as well as teaching university and postgraduate students and conducting international environmental assessments of the Japanese Government. His scientific research was focused on self-thinning phenomenon, stand growth and development, natural catastrophic disturbances and their consequences, and ecosystem carbon dynamics. Boreal forests in North America, Siberia and Scandinavia have been the major subjects of his studies. The main achievement of A. Osawa’s investigations was the new method proposed for quantitatively (stand density and stem parameters) reconstructing structural development over time of even-aged monospecific forests and applied to a larch (Larix gmelinii (Rupr.) Rupr.) stand in the permafrost zone of Siberia. It relies on samples obtained from one-time observation that is of great importance for vast Siberian territories. Akira Osawa was the author and co-author of many scientific articles and chapters of monographs published in leading world journals and publishing houses, an active member of professional scientific communities and organizations. A. Osawa’s biographical data were listed in Marquis Who’s Who in the World (1995). The article contains a list of his main scientific publications, which gives an idea of the research topics, their geography and significance.

Climate change will increase disturbance pressures on forested ecosystems worldwide. In many areas, longer, hotter summers will lead to more wildfire and more insect activity which will substantially increase overall forest mortality. Forest treatments reduce tree density and fuel loads, which in turn reduces fire and insect severity, but implementation has been limited compared to the area needing treatment. Ensuring that forests remain near their reference conditions will require a significant increase in the pace and scale of forest management. In order to assess what pace and scale may be required for a landscape at risk, we simulated forest and disturbance dynamics for the central Sierra Nevada, USA. Our modeling framework included forest growth and succession, wildfire, insect mortality and locally relevant management actions. Our simulations accounted for climate change (five unique global change models on a business-as-usual emissions pathway) and a wide range of plausible forest management scenarios (six total, ranging from less than 1% of area receiving management treatments per year to 6% per year). The climate projections we considered all led to an increasing climatic water deficit, which in turn led to widespread insect caused mortality across the landscape. The level of insect mortality limited the amount of carbon stored and sequestered while leading to significant composition changes, however, only one climate change projection resulted in increased fire over contemporary conditions. While increased pace and scale of treatments led to offsets in fire related tree mortality, managing toward historic reference conditions was not sufficient to reduce insect-caused forest mortality. As such, new management intensities and other adaptation actions may be necessary to maintain forest resilience under an uncertain future climate.

Background--The sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee points out that ecological civilization construction is a fundamental project concerning the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. Protecting the ecological environment means protecting productive forces, and improving the ecological environment means developing productive forces. Forestry productivity is an indispensable part of productive forces. Forestry is the main force of ecological civilization construction in the new era. Forestry plays a unique and critical role in the ecological civilization construction. The high-quality development of forestry is inseparable from the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought. Only by thoroughly implementing Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought and fully implementing it in various forestry system reforms and system construction can forestry development be changed from "quantity" to "quality" a new leap forward. Methods--This paper systematically analyzes the development course of the CPC's promotion of forestry ecological construction by using historical analysis method, and makes a normative analysis and judgment on how the CPC promotes forestry ecological construction. Through the analysis of existing literatures and national policy documents, we can understand the new concept of high-quality forestry development contained in Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought, and explore the practical path of high-quality forestry development guided by Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought. Results--First, there were four stages in the process of the CPC's promotion of forestry ecological construction. The New Democratic Revolution period (1921-1949): initiate local people to plant trees and begin to pay attention to the system to ensure forestry development; Socialist Revolution and Construction period (1949-1978): develop forestry in a planned way and protect forest ecology; The new era of Reform and Opening up and socialist modernization construction (1978-2012): Green forestry reform with "ecological focus"; the new era of socialism with Chinese Characteristics (2012-present): the sustainable development of forestry turns into a new stage of high-quality development. Second, the idea of sustainable forestry development contained in Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought is as follows: "Demand-oriented theory": carry out further afforestation to meet people's green demands; "Value-oriented theory": adhere to the green development of industry, make ecological forestry benefit people; "Goal-oriented theory": promote high-quality development of forestry and enhance ecological civilization level. Therefore, coordinating the construction of ecological civilization and the high-quality development of forestry, and striving to write the chapter of forestry, can build a green road and build a solid foundation of ecological culture for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Conclusions and Discussions--The practical path of promoting high-quality development of forestry under the guidance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought: First, promote afforestation in a scientific way and improve the quality of forests; Second, get through the transformation path of "Two Mountains" and promote the development of forestry industry chain; Third, deepen forestry reform comprehensively and pour a new driving force for high-quality forestry development; Fourth, implement "Forestry Going Global" strategy, promote domestic and international dual circulation; Finally, set up a forestry science and technology service platform and promote the development of forestry productivity through science and technology innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of study: To evaluate the effects of two different prescribed burning strategies on ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal species in Pinus cubensis-dominated natural forest. Area of study: Yateras Silvicultural Base Business Unit, Guantánamo, Cuba. Material and methods: In June 2015, six plots (20 × 50 m) were subjected to forward or back burning. Nine interval samplings (performed 1 week before and up to 120 days after prescribed burning) were undertaken to determine the total number of sporocarps and to evaluate the effect of fire on the soil. Main results: Eight ECM species were collected from the study plots. Suillus sp. and Amanita muscaria started fruiting 15 and 60 days after the fire, respectively. Boletus sp., Suillus brevipes, Suillus decipiens, Suillus sp., Amanita muscaria, Lactarius semisanguifluus, Scleroderma stellatum and Pisolithus arhizus were found before and after prescribed burning. Sporocarp numbers showed an increasing trend after fire and significantly recovered 75 days after forward or back burning and were significantly higher 120 days after forward burning compared to unburned plots. The ECM fungal community in the heading fire and the backfire plots did not differ significantly. However, non-metric multidimensional scaling confirmed that ECM composition differed over time. According to a Mantel test, the sampling time after prescribed burning accounted for 64% of the variation in ECM composition, followed by edaphic factors (26%) such as organic matter and Na. Research highlights: This preliminary study suggests that low-intensity prescribed burning does not have a negative effect on ECM fungal dynamics in humid tropical forests.

Abstract Phenological information contribute to silvicultural actions and conservation strategies. Here, we carried out the phenological monitoring of six tree species that were prominent in the structure of an open ombrophilous forest fragment in northeastern Brazil. Over two years, among September 2015 and August 2017, eight individuals of each species (48 trees in total) were visited every two weeks to record the reproductive and leaf phenophases, following the Fournier intensity scale. We calculated the intraspecific synchrony of the phenophases and the correlation of the phenophases of each species with meteorological variables (temperature, air precipitation and photoperiod). The species showed synchronous characteristics for the phenophases. Precipitation stood out in terms of a higher frequency of significant relationships with the reproductive phenophases. The results indicates that the end of the dry season is the most favorable period for seed collection and the monitoring of dispersers in this type of tropical forest.

Ervedo Giordano passed away in Rome on April 24, 2021. This note describes some of his major scientific contributions to research in silviculture and forest ecology, and sketches out the remarkable personality and character traits that he displayed throughout his life.

This paper highlights the significance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the realm of drone applications in forestry. Drones have revolutionized various forest operations, and their role in mapping, monitoring, and inventory procedures is explored comprehensively. Leveraging advanced imaging technologies and data processing techniques, drones enable real-time tracking of changes in forested landscapes, facilitating effective monitoring of threats such as fire outbreaks and pest infestations. They expedite forest inventory by swiftly surveying large areas, providing precise data on tree species identification, size estimation, and health assessment, thus supporting informed decision-making and sustainable forest management practices. Moreover, drones contribute to tree planting, pruning, and harvesting, while monitoring reforestation efforts in real-time. Wildlife monitoring is also enhanced, aiding in the identification of conservation concerns and informing targeted conservation strategies. Drones offer a safer and more efficient alternative in search and rescue operations within dense forests, reducing response time and improving outcomes. Additionally, drones equipped with thermal cameras enable early detection of wildfires, enabling timely response, mitigation, and preservation efforts. The integration of AI and drones holds immense potential for enhancing forestry practices and contributing to sustainable land management. In the future explainable AI (XAI) improves trust and safety by providing transparency in decision-making, aiding in liability issues, and enabling precise operations. XAI facilitates better environmental monitoring and impact analysis, contributing to efficient forest management and preservation efforts. If a drone's AI can explain its actions, it will be easier to understand why it chose a particular path or action, which could inform safety procedures and improvements. • Overview on the current state of the art on how drones can improve smart forestry. • Discussion on challenges and limitations impeding the utilization in real-world. • Insight into the machine learning methods currently used in smart forestry. • Concluding that drones can benefit forestry in a multi-dimensional way. • Drones beneath tree canopies is an open challenge is rarely tackled in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The impact of ecological and climatological factors on individual organisms over time and space is inherently complex and creates substantial uncertainty about how climate change will influence the global biosphere. To understand some of this complexity, we investigated the factors influencing individual growth of Chamaecyparis thyoides over 61 years within 18 populations across the ca 1500 km and 11 degrees of latitude. We then applied a vulnerability framework to understand how the variability of tree growth response to climate varies between populations and regions across our network. Surprisingly, we found the growth of trees in the central portion of our network responded more synchronously to warming and drought than trees in the southern end of our network, suggesting greater vulnerability in the central populations with continued warming. Our analyses and framework approach revealed substantial complexity in growth responses to climate within and between populations. We found potential resiliency within all populations, but higher inter-population than intra-population variability in response to climate. We found that latitude was an important proxy for the growth response to temperatures during the non-growing season and spring, but that ecosystem structure can modify the growth response and vulnerability to drought during the summer. The range of growth responses to warming is greater in the southern populations than in more northernly populations. This asymmetrical distribution of growth response across our study network provides evidence for a kind of ecological hysteresis, more southerly populations could be more resilient with warming. Despite the fact that this species primarily lives in wetlands, we found drought stress to be an important constraint on growth. Our study and analyses help to explain the disparities between forecasts of how climatic change might impact tree species and ecosystems over space.

Climate change and land management are altering forest fire frequency and intensity worldwide. In some Northeast U.S. forests, pitch pine (Pinus rigida Miller) is not suffering from presence but rather a lack of wildfire events. In their absence, prescribed fire is being used to diminish fuel loads, open canopies and reduce competition. Pyrogenic carbon (PyC) produced by the fires may also improve soil moisture retention and plant physiological processes. Where the application of prescribed fire is not feasible due to nearby human populations, we reason prescribed fire PyC could be replaced by anthropogenic PyC product to provide similar soil benefits. We tested this hypothesis with pitch pine seedlings at a site absent overstory planted in submerged tree pots with control and PyC-imbued soils. Investigators found anthropogenic and forest PyC fostered similar growth, soil moisture retention and photosynthetic intrinsic water use efficiency, both significantly higher than unamended soils. We conclude anthropogenic subsurface PyC soil amendment provides a conservation management tool for enhancing benefits in ecosystems where prescribed fire is not a viable option in northerly forests in the U.S.

The negative synergistic impact of climate change and the increase of anthropogenic pressures on the state, structure and functioning of secondary spruce stands in the Ukrainian Carpathians have been established. A retrospective analysis of the functioning of these forest ecosystems showed that the expected economic effect of creating pure spruce stands did not justify itself and led to large-scale drying and dying of spruce plantations. The performed analysis of the state and dynamics of secondary spruce stands of the Ukrainian Carpathians showed the critical situation of these forest ecosystems and their negative impact on the economic condition of the forestry enterprises of the region. The total area of secondary spruce stands on the territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians is 126678.1 hectares with a total growing stock of 43032.5 thousand m3. Secondary spruce stands occupy the largest area on the territory of Ivano-Frankivsk region ‒ 60514.8 ha (47.8% of the total area of secondary spruce stands) and the smallest ‒ in Chernivtsi region - 13155,1 ha (10.4%). The average growing stock of secondary spruce trees is 340 m3/ha. According to the distribution of secondary spruce stands in the age groups it is as follows: 32.9% of the growing stock is formed by the mature plantations, 27.5% ‒ by the premature forest stands, 21.4% ‒ by the middle aged, 16.8% ‒ by the over mature and only 1.4% of the growing stock form young stands. In general, the average age of secondary spruce stands of the Ukrainian Carpathians is 56 years. Among the forest types, secondary spruce stands in the Ukrainian Carpathians most often occur in the wet beech-spruce-silver fir forests on relative rich soils, where their area is 47537.3 ha (37.5% of the total area of secondary spruce stands). A significant number of secondary spruce stands were formed also in the wet beech-spruce-silver fir forests on rich soils ‒ 17761.2 ha (14.0%). Secondary spruce stands have the high productivity ‒ the largest area is occupied by the first site class of forest stands ‒ 89631 ha (70.8% of the total area). In the study region dominate secondary spruce stands with the high stand density (0.8-1.0), the area of which is 67302.2 ha (53.1%). The stands with the middle stand density (0.6-0.7) cover an area of 45160.7 ha (35.7%), and the stands with the small stand density (0.4-0.5) ‒12646.0 ha (10.0%). Secondary spruce stands with the stand density up to 0.3 are 1520.5 hectares (1.2%), and more than 1.0 ‒ only 48.7 hectares (0.04%). It is established that in order to solve the problem of drying up of spruce plantations, it is necessary to monitor forest ecosystems and integrate into the forest management practices the principles of close-to-nature silviculture. In particular, to increase the biotic stability, sustainability and biodiversity of secondary spruce stand, it is necessary to apply more extensive conversion cuttings. Based on the reports of the regional forestry and hunting administrations in the Ukrainian Carpathian region, it is found that state forestry enterprises are still under-utilizing the conversion cuttings. Therefore, the issue of localization and prevention of secondary spruce stands still remains relevant.

Models of trees and stands exist since many decades, what nowadays has changed is our focus towards integrated forest ecosystem functioning. Managing forests in the 21st century requires efforts that go beyond empiricism. Annikki Mäkelä and Harry T. Valentine’s new book “Models of tree and stand dynamics” (Springer Nature, Cham, 2020) shows the state-of-art for knowledge applied within forest models with useful practical applications. It is a textbook for graduates and scientists interested in process-based models of stand dynamics, growth and forest management. Models represent valuable tools for tackling issues like ecosystem carbon sequestration, helping us understand the economic implications of silvicultural interventions and providing insights on the impacts of climate change on forests. The textbook is a compendium of applied research that non-pure mathematicians can understand, interiorize and take advantage of for getting precious knowledge on forest functioning.

Soil organic carbon plays an important role in the stability and fertility of soil and is influenced by different management practice. We quantified active and passive carbon pools from total soil organic carbon (TOC) in seven different land use systems of northeast India. TOC was highest (2.75%) in natural forest and lowest in grassland (1.31%) and it decreased with increasing depth in different pools of lability. Very Labile Carbon (VLC) fraction ranged from 36.11 to 42.74% of TOC across different land use system. Active carbon (AC) pool was highest in Wet Rice Cultivation (61.64%) and lowest (58.71%) in natural forest. Higher AC pools (VLC and less labile) in most land use systems barring natural forests suggest that the land use systems in the region are vulnerable to land use change and must adopt suitable management practice to harness carbon sequestration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts between biodiversity conservation and resource production can be mitigated by multi-objective management planning. Optimizing management for multiple objectives over larger land areas likely entails trading off the practicability of the process against the goodness of the solution. It is therefore worthwhile to resolve how large areas are required as management planning regions to reconcile conflicting objectives as effectively as possible. We aimed to reveal how the extent of forestry planning regions impacts the potential to mitigate a forestry-conservation conflict in Finland, represented as a trade-off between harvest income and deadwood availability. We used forecasted data from a forest simulator, a hierarchy of forestry planning regions, and an optimization model to explore the production possibility frontier between harvest income and deadwood. We compared the overall outcomes when management was optimized within the different-sized planning regions in terms of the two objectives, the spatial variation of deadwood, and the optimal combinations of management regimes. Increasing the size of the planning regions did produce higher simultaneous levels of the two objectives, but the differences were most often of the magnitude of only a few percentages. The differences among the scales were minor also in terms of the spatial variation in deadwood availability and in the optimal management combinations. The conflict between timber harvesting and deadwood availability is only marginally easier to mitigate at large spatial scales than at small forest ownership scales. However, regardless of the spatial scale of planning, the achievable solutions may not be good enough to safeguard deadwood-dependent biodiversity without active deadwood creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of different types of land tenure in areas with high biodiversity and threats of deforestation remains poorly understood. We apply rigorous quasi-experimental methods and detailed geospatial data to assess the role of tenure regimes—communally held lands (specifically, ejidos), private property, and their impact on the effectiveness of protected areas, in reducing forest loss in a biodiversity hotspot- the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. We find evidence that, while protected areas are effective on average, their impact depends on the underlying type of tenure regime and forest, proxied by biomass levels and biome. Protecting communally held land may reduce deforestation, specifically the loss of medium- and high-biomass forests, compared to forests under private property regimes. Our results have important policy implications for the conservation and climate change mitigation efforts on the Yucatan. However, the high variance in forest loss rates among ejidos indicates that other characteristics of ejidos may be central to understanding community-based forest conservation opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at the valuation of the potential and economic significance of the recreational ecosystem services of forests. The research was conducted in the area of Městské lesy Hradec Králové a.s. in 2018. A part of the questionnaire survey assessed by means of statistical analysis was based on the travel cost method and the contingent valuation method, which investigate the respondents' willingness to pay for services resulting from the recreational ecosystem service of forests. The research specifically dealt with the visitors' willingness to pay for the services resulting from the use of forest logging roads, forest clearings, and small structures of forest infrastructure. The questionnaires were created using foreign publications and case studies. The findings of the questionnaire survey indicated that visitors prevailingly believed that the recreational service provided by the area of interest should not be chargeable. The reason for this opinion was mainly the fact that the visitors perceive the forests in the territory of Městské lesy Hradec Králové a.s. as public goods, hence the access to them should be free of charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest planners employ various techniques to mitigate the visible effects of harvesting, including by manipulating the shape of harvest blocks. Shape is a common indicator of preference in aesthetic evaluations of landscape and harvest block design. However, the majority of perception-based research in the field of landscape aesthetics has focused on the perspective view. This study investigates the perceptual effects of two shape characteristics: complexity and image mode, as viewed from the air. Order and subjects’ area of study were also tested. Forty-five aerial images of harvest blocks and 45 digitally-manipulated harvest block shapes were used as the harvest and shape image sets, respectively. Seventy-five subjects rated each image for preference. Complexity was the strongest predictor of preference. Preference increased as complexity level increased, regardless of the image mode in which the shapes were presented. Subjects with an environmental focus in their area of study demonstrated a more prominent complexity effect than those from non-environmental fields. Both image mode and area of study had small but significant effects on preference ratings. These results confirm previous findings pertaining to complexity in psychology and landscape aesthetics, in which complexity, as a characteristic of shape, plays a role in predicting preference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural nest sites are important breeding resource in terms of population dynamics, especially in forest systems where nest trees limit populations or timber harvesting destroys nests. Nest structures usually have a long life and can be reused by breeding pairs across multiple breeding seasons, so studying their dynamics is of relevance for biodiversity conservation. In this study, we develop a dynamic model to evaluate nest site availability and its influence on the breeding settlement of a forest raptor community composed of booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus), common buzzard (Buteo buteo) and northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) in a Mediterranean forest ecosystem in southeast Spain. This model approach is also applied to analyse the influence of forestry practices on the dynamics of occupied nests for a simulated period (2010–2050). The simulated scenarios include unmanaged forest and timber harvesting practices of clearcuttings every ten years considering two factors: the age class of trees for clearcutting (40, 50, 60 and 70 years old) and the type of forest management (with or without nest protection). Our simulated results show that the number of breeding pairs is constant during the period without timber harvest, whereas breeding pairs gradually decrease in the scenario of clearcutting trees aged from 70 to 50-years without nest protection, and populations become extinct with the clearcutting of 40-year old trees. Considering the practice of clearcutting and nest protection, nest occupancy can reach the maximum number of occupied nests for the scenarios of cutting 70 and 60-year old trees, and maintain populations without extinction for the scenarios of cutting 40-year old trees. We conclude that nest sites (whether occupied or not) are key resources for increasing the occupancy of the forest raptor community and that nest protection measures buffer the effects of clearcuttings, thus preventing population extinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]