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Forests
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Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests
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Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2023) | Viewed by 7222

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ioannis Spanos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Forest Research Institute of Thessaloniki, ELGO-DEMETER, 57006 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: silviculture; forest ecology; forest management; postfire restoration; eco-engineering
Dr. Stefanos Tsiaras

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forest and Natural Environment Sciences, International Hellenic University, 66100 Drama, Greece
Interests: sustainable development; environment; society and environment; geographic information system; sustainability; fungal diversity; forestry; remote sensing; agricultural economics; maps
Dr. Theano Samara

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
ELGO-DEMETER, Forest Research Institute, 56007 Vassilika, Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: atmospheric pollution; silviculture; environment; forest ecology; air quality; air pollution studies; reforestation; organic matter

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Anthropogenic and natural disturbances shape forest systems by affecting their composition, structure, and functional processes. Natural disturbances may be abiotic (fires, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, and landslides) or biotic (exotic species, insect, and pathogen outbreaks), and anthropogenic disturbances include deforestation, air pollution and land use change. Different types of disturbances and their different levels have varying impacts on forests. While small-scale disturbances may be important in promoting ecosystem dynamics, driving regeneration, and successional processes, the effects of high-intensity disturbances may lead to undesirable successional pathways. Growing evidence of the considerable changes in disturbance regimes, particularly increases in frequency, scale, and severity, requires forest managers to pay increasing attention to the resilience of the ecosystem to disturbances.

The scope of this Special Issue is the management and restoration of post-disturbance forests using eco-engineering and ground bioengineering techniques, both of which fall within the sciences of forest ecology, silviculture, forest management, and forest economics and policy. The main topics are flood and soil protection, postfire regeneration, re-forestation, slope protection from hazards such as erosion, landslides, avalanches, rock falls, etc., post-disturbance treatments, and ground bioengineering methods integrated with natural or man-made materials to obtain fast, effective, and economic methods for restoring forests and the natural environment.

Prof. Dr. Ioannis Spanos
Dr. Stefanos Tsiaras
Dr. Theano Samara
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • applied silviculture and reforestation
  • species selection for reforestation
  • sustainable forest management
  • forest restoration
  • post-disturbance management
  • regeneration
  • soil and flood protection
  • forest resilience

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1801 KiB  
Article
Post-Fire Restoration and Deadwood Management: Microsite Dynamics and Their Impact on Natural Regeneration
by Emanuele Lingua, Gonçalo Marques, Niccolò Marchi, Matteo Garbarino, Davide Marangon, Flavio Taccaliti and Raffaella Marzano
Forests 2023, 14(9), 1820; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14091820 - 6 Sep 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1290
Abstract
After large and severe wildfires, the establishment of tree regeneration, particularly for species without specific fire-adaptive traits, can be challenging. Within harsh environments, the presence of favorable microsites, as those provided by deadwood, enhancing microclimatic conditions, is crucial to the re-establishment of forest [...] Read more.
After large and severe wildfires, the establishment of tree regeneration, particularly for species without specific fire-adaptive traits, can be challenging. Within harsh environments, the presence of favorable microsites, as those provided by deadwood, enhancing microclimatic conditions, is crucial to the re-establishment of forest cover and thus to foster recovery dynamics. Active restoration strategies can have an impact on these dynamics, altering or hindering them. The main hypothesis of this study is that manipulating deadwood in terms of quantity and spatial arrangement can result in differences in natural regeneration density and composition. Post-disturbance regeneration dynamics and the role played by deadwood over time in the creation of safe sites for seedling establishment were investigated in an area affected by a high-severity wildfire that underwent different post-fire restoration treatments along a gradient of increasing deadwood manipulation, spanning from salvage logging to non-intervention. Two inventories were performed 5 and 11 years after the fire. Ground cover proportion was significantly different among treatments, with lower values of lying deadwood in salvaged sites. A higher probability of regeneration establishment close to deadwood was found in both surveys, confirming the facilitating role of deadwood on post-fire forest regeneration. Microsite dynamics resulting from deadwood facilitation were highlighted, with establishment probability and anisotropic relationships between deadwood elements and seedlings changing over time, as recovery processes slowly improved environmental conditions. In dry mountain areas affected by stand-replacing wildfires, by removing deadwood, salvage logging reduces the number of safe sites for regeneration, further impairing the ecosystem recovery. Passive management should be the ecologically preferred management strategy in these conditions, although intermediate interventions (e.g., felling without delimbing, leaving deadwood on the ground) could be effective alternatives, accelerating snag fall dynamics and immediately increasing favorable microsite availability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests)
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15 pages, 2550 KiB  
Article
Effects of Tree Functional Traits on Soil Respiration in Tropical Forest Plantations
by Natthapong Ontong, Roongreang Poolsiri, Sapit Diloksumpun, Duriya Staporn and Michael Jenke
Forests 2023, 14(4), 715; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14040715 - 31 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1488
Abstract
Fast-growing tree species, including Eucalyptus sp. and Acacia sp., are widely used to rehabilitate degraded tropical forestland quickly, while mitigating climate change. However, the extent of carbon losses through soil respiration (RS) often remains unknown. Moreover, the promotion of these [...] Read more.
Fast-growing tree species, including Eucalyptus sp. and Acacia sp., are widely used to rehabilitate degraded tropical forestland quickly, while mitigating climate change. However, the extent of carbon losses through soil respiration (RS) often remains unknown. Moreover, the promotion of these non-native species has raised concerns over their impact on other ecosystem services, including N2-fixation-induced soil acidification and nutrient cycling. This study compared two non-native and native species, with one of each being N2-fixing, growing in 11-year-old monospecific plantations in NE Thailand. Hourly RS was measured monthly over one year and combined with stand characteristics, as well as soil microclimatic and chemical properties. Mixed-effects models were used to capture this hierarchical, diurnal, and seasonal dataset. RS rates were influenced by soil temperature and moisture following a parabolic relation, and negatively affected by acidity. Overall, RS varied significantly according to species-specific microclimates and productivity. Despite the high input of organic matter, non-native species failed to ameliorate extreme soil moisture or temperature; limiting microbial decomposition and reducing RS. Hopea odorata produced moderate levels of carbon sequestration, but maintained soil fertility. The choice of tree species can significantly affect carbon sequestration and storage, as well as nutrient cycling, and careful species selection could optimize these ecosystem services. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests)
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19 pages, 6886 KiB  
Article
Insect Diversity in the Coastal Pinewood and Marsh at Schinias, Marathon, Greece: Impact of Management Decisions on a Degraded Biotope
by Panos V. Petrakis, Panagiotis P. Koulelis, Alexandra D. Solomou, Kostas Spanos, Ioannis Spanos and Alan Feest
Forests 2023, 14(2), 392; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020392 - 15 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1550
Abstract
The insects trapped in 63 plots positioned in a mixed pinewood and a marsh in Schinias, Marathon, Greece is studied relative to the anthropogenic disturbance. The last anthropogenic impact was recently intensified because of the Olympic Games in the area. One hundred and [...] Read more.
The insects trapped in 63 plots positioned in a mixed pinewood and a marsh in Schinias, Marathon, Greece is studied relative to the anthropogenic disturbance. The last anthropogenic impact was recently intensified because of the Olympic Games in the area. One hundred and forty insect species were found that had abundances greater than two individuals in each sampling session in all plots. Seven insect community types were found using cluster analysis. The types, which corresponded to recognized habitats, re-emerged in a non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination. It was also found that insects tended to dwell in different plots, even in the same habitat. The invading P. halepensis Mill., which replaces P. pinea L., changed the entomofauna. The seven habitats had different numbers of bioindicators out of 74 insect species, not in general correlated with human impact. Three components of insect diversity were measured, and the temporal species turnover was consistently higher than the spatial one. In this sense, pine habitats were rated first in terms of overall insect diversity. In terms of biodiversity, the impact on the various biotopes was assessed utilizing the diversity–equitability index V, which indicated that the two P. halepensis-dominated habitats have negative V values together with the habitat dominated by Tamarix hampeana Nied. The conservation of P. pinea and the marsh habitats is recommended for conserving local entomofauna and stopping the progression of P. halepensis. The optimization of management strategies to meet the management goals of all elements of this degraded ecosystem seems to be crucial. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests)
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Review

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11 pages, 909 KiB  
Review
Water Retention Potential in Novel Terrestrial Ecosystems Restored on Post-Mine Sites: A Review
by Pranav Dev Singh, Anna Klamerus-Iwan and Marcin Pietrzykowski
Forests 2023, 14(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14010018 - 22 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1999
Abstract
Many activities are conducted with the view of reducing CO2 emission from fossil fuels, but mining extraction will continue to be important for energy sources, mineral and metal ores, and the general economy. This activity has negative environmental consequences such as habitat [...] Read more.
Many activities are conducted with the view of reducing CO2 emission from fossil fuels, but mining extraction will continue to be important for energy sources, mineral and metal ores, and the general economy. This activity has negative environmental consequences such as habitat loss, water scarcity, and soil degradation in novel ecosystems. Additionally, climate change, drought, and desertification accelerate important problems with water retention. From one point of view, identifying and conserving critical regions for ecological sustainability are issues of fundamental importance, but on the other hand, post-mine sites could provide additional carbon sinks and improve regional water retention (WR). This review paper analyses different studies focusing on the impact of the reclamation of mining sites on the water retention properties of soil. Water retention in reclaimed mining soil (RMS) increased considerably after various restoration efforts were implemented. The amount of water holding capacity in RMS was mostly affected by reclamation methods, soil properties, soil biota, restoration duration, and vegetation type. The major conclusions from the analysis were that (i) the bulk density of reclaimed mining soil ranges from 1.35 to 1.50 g/cm3 and decreases with restoration duration; (ii) Soil fauna increases soil water storage capacity and plant litter and earthworms convert litter to fecal pellets, which increases water field capacity; and (iii) water holding capacity increases with duration of reclaimed sites and type of plants, i.e., afforestation and tree communities have higher WR than younger grasslands. Therefore, identification of the suitable reclamation method, restoration duration, vegetation type, and soil fauna are important factors for increasing water retention capacity at a regional scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Management and Restoration of Post-disturbance Forests)
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