Forests, Volume 12, Issue 6

Due to traditional forest management, the primary goal of which is the production of raw wood material, commercial forest stands are characterized by low biodiversity. At the same time, commercial forests make up the majority of forests in the Centra...

The quantification of post-disturbance root reinforcement (RR) recovery dynamics is of paramount importance for the optimisation of forest ecosystem services and natural hazards risk management in mountain regions. In this work we analyse the long-te...

Shrub encroachment of grassland and woodland ecosystems can alter wildfire behaviour and threaten ecological values. Australian fire managers are using mechanical mastication to reduce the fire risk in encroached ecosystems but are yet to evaluate it...

When adopted, wildlife protection policies in Canadian forests typically cover large areas and affect multiple economic agents working in these landscapes. Such measures are likely to increase the costs of timber for forestry companies operating in t...

Sawmilling operations represent one of the most important phases of the wood supply chain, because they connect the conversion flow of raw materials into finite products. In order to maintain a high volume of processed wood, sawmills usually adopt di...

Members of the genus Fusarium and related genera are important components of many ecosystems worldwide and are responsible for many plant diseases. However, the structure of beech litter-inhabiting Fusarium communities and their potential role in red...

Forest ecosystems, including natural forests, managed forests, agroforestry systems, and urban and peri-urban forests, can be considered as multifunctional Nature-based Solutions (NbS) since they deliver key ecosystem services to people [...]

Beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) forests in Iran are one of the most important sources of the hardwood species used for lumber, furniture, and interior object design due to its hardness, wear resistance, strength, and excellent bending capabilities. F...

Understanding the impacts of nitrogen (N) addition on soil respiration (R_S) and its temperature sensitivity (Q₁₀) in tropical forests is very important for the global carbon cycle in a changing environment. Here, we investigated how R_S respond to N a...

Humid tropical forests are commonly characterized as N-rich but P-deficient. Increased N deposition may drive N saturation and aggravate P limitation in tropical forests. Thus, P addition is proposed to mitigate the negative effects of N deposition b...

Dalbergia hupeana Hance (D. hupeana) is a precious hardwood tree of the genus Dalbergia. It is one of the few species widely distributed within subtropical areas and is important for timber production and forest restoration. At present, there is litt...

Soil microbial communities play an important role in maintaining the ecosystem during forest secondary succession. However, the underlying mechanisms that drive change in soil microbial community structures during secondary succession remain poorly d...

Urban forests offer multiple functions: they can balance negative effects from the environment and provide the public with a place for leisure and recreation. Hence, urban forests are crucial to urban ecology and have been widely studied. In addition...

Forest biomass is a sustainable source of renewable energy and a valuable alternative to finite fossil fuels. However, its overharvesting may lead to soil nutrient depletion and threaten future stand productivity, as well as affect the habitat for bi...

Responsible forest management requires accounting for adverse environmental effects, such as increased nutrient export to water courses. We constructed a spatially-distributed nutrient balance model NutSpaFHy that extends the hydrological model SpaFH...

Most tree species in the temperate climatic zone (including Douglas fir) disperse seeds in autumn. Some of them must be exposed to cold (0–10 °C) and moist conditions (cold stratification) to overcome dormancy and trigger germination. In the Northern...

Skidding is considered to be one of the most stressful works for the forest environment. This paper presented the results obtained from the analysis of soil deformation and selected physical and mechanical parameters of soils on skid trails in the Go...

Bark beetle (Dendroctonus spp.) outbreaks in the middle latitudes of western North America cause large amounts of tree mortality, outstripping wildfire by an order of magnitude. While temperatures play an important, and direct role in the population...

To identify general patterns in the effect of climate-driven changes in the outbreak frequency of forest defoliating species, we examined 60 years of records (1950–2010) of outbreaks of five defoliating species. Data on Lymantria dispar, Lymantria mo...

WRKY transcription factors are one of the largest families in plants, playing important roles in regulating plant immunity. Malus sievesii has abundant genetic diversity and can offer various and high-quality gene resources. In this study, 112 putati...

Intensive silviculture is practiced in many parts of the world but is rare in the public forests of western Canada. Here, we make the argument that intensive silviculture could be justified in Alberta but has not been implemented due to philosophies...

The Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) is known for its complex topography of hills and gullies, and lots of human land-use management activities have been put into practice to sustain the soil, water and other natural resources. Afforestation has been wide...

Functional characteristics reflect plant strategies and adaptability to the changing environment. Determining the dynamics of these characteristics after harvesting would improve the understanding of forest response strategies. Strip clearcutting (SC...

Chestnut blight, a disease that has spread rampantly among American (Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh.) and European chestnut (C. sativa Mill.) trees, results from infection by the fungal pathogen Cryphonectria parasitica (Murrill) M.E. Barr (C. paras...

We investigated the effects of forest management on the carbon (C) dynamics in Romanian forest soils, using two model simulations: CBM-CFS3 and Yasso15. Default parametrization of the models and harmonized litterfall simulated by CBM provided satisfa...

This study presents a decision support system for the financial analysis of an acorn chain used in food production. The application of these fruits, in fact, shows potential in human nutrition and valorization of rural and marginal areas. A multi-ste...

(1) Background: Wood decay is a serious issue that results from the presence of wood-destroying fungi and has a great influence on the international wood industry. The utilization of biological control methods offers good prospects for wood preservat...

The oak flora of North America north of Mexico is both phylogenetically diverse and species-rich, including 92 species placed in five sections of subgenus Quercus, the oak clade centered on the Americas. Despite phylogenetic and taxonomic progress on...

Afforestation is an effective solution for restoring forest ecosystems and mitigating climate change in the tropics. In this study, we analyzed the soil respiration (Rs) at four afforested sites with different tree species exposed to a monsoon climat...

In arid and semi-arid regions, a better understanding of the effect of climate change mechanisms on environmental evolution can be used to guide regional ecological conservation and to improve water resource availability. Increased aridity in arid an...

The process of etiolation contributes significantly to vegetative propagation and root formation of woody plants. However, the molecular interaction pattern of different factors for etiolated adventitious root development in woody plants remains uncl...

Providing high quality seedlings for use in forestry applications is one of the main challenges faced by the forest nurseries, and it depends on the practices used in such facilities. For instance, controlled experiments have shown that seedling grow...

Research Highlights: Management of the risks forests are exposed to is based on the dynamics of the composition and structure of the stands and the forest. Background and Objectives: This study aimed to document the dynamics of the composition and st...

Diploid clones of the hybrid acacia (Acacia mangium × A. auriculiformis) are widely planted in Vietnam because of their high productivity, adaptability, and commercial wood yields. Polyploid breeding offers possibilities for further enhancing hybrid...

Understanding and explaining the use of green spaces and forests is challenging for sustainable urban planning. In recent years there has been increasing demand for novel approaches to investigate urban green infrastructure by capitalizing on large d...

Assessing the characteristics and limiting factors of tree growth is of practical significance for environmental studies and climatic reconstruction, especially in climate transition zones. In this study, four sites of Pinus armandii Franeh are inves...

This case study introduces an innovation and development concept for agile software tools for the improvement of the productivity and customer experience of forest services. This need was recognized in the context of the opening of forest data and th...

Pilgerodendron uviferum (D. Don) Florin is an endemic, threatened conifer that grows in South America. In the sub-Antarctic territory, one of the most isolated places in the world, some forest patches remain untouched since the last glaciation. In th...

Early successional plant community assemblage within a reclamation field trial at the Detour Lake Mine in northeastern Ontario is assessed, and compared with reference forested and historically reclaimed sites. The reclamation field trial examines ei...

Intending to achieve more green and economical graphene impregnated modified fast-growing poplar wood veneer for heat conduction, this study proposes and investigates the feasibility of modified veneer with graphene/Polyvinyl alcohol (Gr/PVA) impregn...

In addition to the classic biotic and abiotic factors that have disrupted the health of forests throughout history, lately, the balance of forest ecosystems has been disturbed by different phenomena such as climate change, pollution, and, especially,...

The pine wood nematode (PWN), Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, that causes pine wilt disease (PWD), has severely damaged forests and ecosystems in countries of East Asia and Europe. Since the high propagation rate of PWD is the main cause of the devastati...

The estimation of the sampling variance of point estimators under two-dimensional systematic sampling designs remains a challenge, and several alternative variance estimators have been proposed in the past few decades. In this work, we compared six a...

We evaluated the ecological significance of the boundary form between two patches with contrasting vegetation (mine grassland and adjacent forest) on woody colonization and forest expansion in open-cast coal mines in Northern Spain. Woody colonizatio...

The forest at the Changdeokgung Rear Garden is under ecological threat from factors such as soil acidification due to the growing influence of nearby metropolitan Seoul. It is difficult to maintain biodiversity in forests without first setting a clea...

The forest understory is rich in fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. They include both native species and invasive alien plant species (IAPS). One of the most spreading IAPS is black cherry (Prunus serotina E.). Problems with the invasiveness of P. serot...

The pinewood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (B. xylophilus) is responsible for a devastating disease of pine forests. Its pathogenicity is closely related to the numbers of individual B. xylophilus. The ratio of female to male (sex ratio) is key...

Translocating plants to natural habitats is a long-standing conservation practice but is growing in magnitude to deliver international targets to mitigate climate change and reverse biodiversity loss. Concurrently, outbreaks of novel plant pests and...

Radial stem size changes, measured with automated dendrometers at intra-daily resolution, offer great potential to link environmental conditions with tree physiology at the seasonal scale. Such measurements need to be time-aligned, cleaned of outlier...

Prescribed burning is a tool that is frequently used for various land management objectives, mainly related to reduction of hazardous forest fuels, habitat management and ecological restoration. Given the crucial role of soil in forest ecosystem proc...