A major problem within forestry is winter browsing on young Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) by European moose (Alces alces). Moose are selective foragers and make foraging decisions on many scales, for example, they avoid trees with high levels of plant defensive compounds, which reduce digestibility. Bark extract from Norway spruce (Picea abies) is known to have high levels of such defensive compounds

The success of tree regeneration in forests strongly depends on light availability. In structured uneven-aged deciduous forests with continuous cover, radiation regimes in the understorey are typically characterized by low and heterogeneous light transmittance. The competitive ability of juvenile trees in these forests is therefore linked to their shade tolerance and expressed by different growth strategies

Despite different levels of complexity among biomass models, it is unclear how much patterns of biomass production and allocation differ between mountain and lowland forests, and how much neglecting this difference biases carbon pool estimations. To address this question, we studied chronosequences of 24 Fagus sylvatica and 24 Picea abies stands in Poland, located both in lowlands and highlands (12

Pinus taeda (loblolly pine) is a widely-cultivated conifer that is particularly prevalent in the southeast United States and Southern Brazil. Some companies in Brazil are working with the third generation of improvement and other clonal tests of this species. The present study analyzed the interaction of genotype × environment (G × E) in clonal tests of loblolly pine planted in the South and Southeast

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a key driver of ecosystem functioning and may also contribute to climate change mitigation through the sequestration of carbon. Therefore, having an understanding of the key drivers of SOC may inform management changes that will improve ecosystem function and climate change mitigation. The selected study area is ranged from montane forests to tropical grasslands. Extensive

Sustainable forest management relies on the understanding of biodiversity response to disturbance and the ecological resilience of the system. The dynamic equilibrium hypothesis (DEM) predicts that site productivity will modulate the effects of disturbance gradient on biodiversity. Also, considering functional diversity (eco-morfo-phisicological traits related to resource usage) is needed to understand

Pine trees produce large amounts of oleoresin to defend against biotic threats. Resin is highly costly to produce and investment in its production must be accurately optimized in relation to allocation to other life functions such growth. As a result of these costs, resin production is highly variable both genetically (among and within species) and plastically (across temporal and spatial environmental

Chile’s temperate forest is a global biodiversity hotspot. An upsurge in alien forest plantations has disturbed and fragmented the landscape, promoting biological invasions. The invasion process is not fully understood since monitoring large and inaccessible areas can be prohibitively expensive and logistically challenging using field-based methods alone. Here, a remote sensing approach using Sentinel-2

The resilience or sensitivity of seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) to climate change remains an important issue because of their biodiversity and ecosystem services provision. Understand the underlying ecological processes of SDTF is crucial for the development of conservation and management strategies. We tested the hypotheses that SDTF tree species richness, above-ground woody biomass (AGWB)

Phenotypic plasticity refers to the ability of a single genotype to express distinct phenotypes in response to the environment, a crucial feature for sessile organisms like forest trees, especially in a scenario of global climate change. Several studies show that epigenetic regulation plays an important role in this plastic adaptation response, driving the search for associations between natural epigenetic

Ungulate browsing limits forest regeneration on many reforestation and restoration sites. Silviculture can be used to mitigate the effects of ungulate damage by promoting rapid early growth of planted seedlings, but benefits may depend upon site characteristics and ungulate browse pressure. We studied the interactions among browsing by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), use of genetically

Plantations can provide a large amount of wood products for human society but also have incredible potential to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere due to its growth. However, management of these even-aged plantations to maximize the joint benefits of wood production and carbon sequestration objectives for forest managers and policymakers remains unclear, especially under the stringent targets

Gaps in the forest canopy appear to play a major role in local species richness as they increase habitat heterogeneity and border effects. In the case of bats, these small clearings seem to play an important role as foraging and commuting sites. However, further research is required to set the actual role of forest gaps on bat biology in order to consider them as conservation targets in forest management

Ethiopian dry Afromontane forests are complex ecosystems that have important economic and ecological roles. However, recurrent fire has been a source of disturbance for these forests. We assessed the effect of fire on soil fungal communities in a remnant dry Afromontane forest in Wondo Genet, southern Ethiopia, by analysing soil samples collected from unburned stands and from stands one and ten years

Stand structure can have a considerable influence on forest growth and productivity. A stand’s response to factors like temperature, precipitation, vapor pressure deficit and different soil characteristics may result not only from the mean change in tree responses (e.g. growth decrease or increase), but may also depend on how individual tree responses vary in relation to their size and how they cope

Adopting a multifaceted approach of biodiversity is believed to capture different aspects of the ecosystem functioning and it is thus advised for conservation prioritisation, especially for anthropogenic ecosystems but this key topic has never been conducted for the Mediterranean tree assemblages, despite their ecological importance. We explored how the multi-faceted diversity of woody plant assemblages

Forest management alters the growing conditions and thus further development of trees. However, quantitative assessment of forest management on tree growth has been demanding as methodologies for capturing changes comprehensively in space and time have been lacking. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has shown to be capable of providing three-dimensional (3D) tree stem reconstructions required for revealing

Sandy soils presenting low organic matter levels do not provide enough N to meet Eucalyptus sp. demands. Nitrogen fertilizers can be applied to soil surface, although N losses tend to happen and to decrease the amounts of this component used by plants. Alternatively, N can be applied to planting pits at seedling transplantation time or to small holes dug close to the plants. However, aspects such as

Agriculture is considered the backbone of the Namibian economy. However, bush encroachment affects approximately 45 million hectares of Namibian farmland and in the absence of appropriate restoration measures, negatively affects local biodiversity and the national economy. Bush thinning operations on three freehold farms were assessed to examine the response of local ungulates (small, medium, large)

Globally, prescribed fire, harvesting, and understory mastication, alone and in combination, are common forest management practices. Timber commodities, wildlife habitat, wildfire fuel reduction, soil conservation, and water quality are frequently targeted and assessed as these practices are utilized. In the 1960s, a study of paired, first-order watersheds was established in coastal South Carolina

Biomass of trees may be predicted either directly applying allometric models or indirectly from volume and biomass expansion factors (BEFs). For the Dry Afromontane forests, the second largest biomass pool in Ethiopia, such methods are not devised and properly documented. The main objective of this study was to explore different aboveground tree biomass prediction options based on destructively sampled

Soil resource quantity and heterogeneity as well as overstory characteristics change along with stand age after fire disturbance, imposing strong influences on post-fire understory recovery. In this study, we aimed to assess how soil resource (nitrogen quantity and heterogeneity), topographic position (aspect), overstory characteristics (basal area), and stand age affected understory characteristics

Forestry in the boreal region increasingly replaces natural disturbances in shaping biodiversity. Large-scale removal of small diameter trees (thinning), is ubiquitous in northern European forestry, yet an understanding of how it relates to biodiversity across taxa is lacking. To address this, we examined how two forest structural elements, commonly impacted by forest thinning (i.e. vegetation density

Overyielding in mixed species stands is expected to vary with stand density, but only a few studies have quantified this. We used individual-tree growth data from permanent sample plots on 83 sites in Switzerland representing a three-species mixture between Norway spruce, Silver fir, and European beech. Basal area growth models for all three species indicated significant interactions between a competition

In recent years, land uses have been changing and aridity has been increasing in the forests and rangelands of central Koohdasht which is a region in the forests of the Zagros Mountains in western Iran. Consequently, the number of fires has also increased. This study employs data-mining techniques to model fire danger using information regarding land cover, climate, topography, and other fire-danger

For tropical tree species, wood density can vary greatly both within and between species depending on environmental conditions. In Amazonian seasonally flooded forests, yearly flood pulses influence tree growth and floodplain trees have developed specialised strategies to cope with prolonged submersion during flooding. We therefore hypothesised that seasonal floods significantly affect the capacity

Salinity intrusion is responsible for changes to freshwater wetland watersheds globally, but little is known about how wetland water budgets might be influenced by small increments in salinity. We studied a forested wetland in South Carolina, USA, and installed sap flow probes on 72 trees/shrubs along a salinity gradient. Species investigated included the trees baldcypress (Taxodium distichum [L.]

Attributes of the historical fire regime can influence fauna dynamics by moderating vegetation composition and the availability of appropriate habitat. Despite this, the indirect impacts of specific aspects of the long-term fire regime are often overlooked. Here we conduct a field survey at 27 sites in sub-alpine forests of Namadgi National Park (Australia) to determine if one aspect of the historical

It is important to know the growth rate of the species to be managed to establish sustainable forest management plans because from this information, it is possible to know which species have reached the minimum commercial size to be collected in future harvests. Manilkara elata (Allemão ex Miq.) Monach is considered one of the most commercialized timber tree species, both inside and outside of Brazil

Biochar has been known as means to increase soil carbon (C) storage, and at the same time to ameliorate soil acidity and enhance plant growth. However, how biochar addition affects microbial community composition and metabolic function in subtropical plantation soils and their linkage with soil quality change is still poorly understood. We selected bamboo stick, corn straw and peel of Carya cathayensis

In recent years, coarse woody debris (CWD) of deadwood has attracted attention as a long-term carbon pool for global warming problems. Environmental factors such as temperature and precipitation vary greatly with elevation. Hence, it is expected that the carbon storage by CWD varies with elevation. However, few studies have examined the abundance of CWD along elevations. Therefore, we investigated

The oomycete plant pathogen, Phytophthora austrocedri, is an aggressive killer of cypress trees causing severe mortality of Chilean cedar (Austrocedrus chilensis) in Argentina since the 1940 s and now of common juniper (Juniperus communis s.l.) in the UK. Rapid mortality of key UK juniper populations was first observed in the early 2000 s. The causal agent of mortality was confirmed as P. austrocedri

Pinus taeda plantations in subtropical areas of South America are extremely productive and commonly established on well-drained red clay sites. In the past, land with more poorly-drained soil was avoided due to concern over the factors limiting site productivity. Establishment of intensively managed plantations on poorly-drained soils usually includes soil preparation by subsoiling and/or bedding,

Pollination, especially by bees, has high importance for man and nature. Ongoing global declines in bee populations make their present and future conservation crucial. We investigated how management of natural areas affects plants and pollinators, in the context of fire prevention measures in Mediterranean forests. The standard forestry practice to reduce fire hazard includes construction of vegetation-thinned

The mountain pine beetle (MPB), Dendroctonus ponderosae, is an eruptive endemic forest pest that is undergoing substantial range expansion in response to recent climatic changes, breaching geographic barriers, exploiting novel hosts, and affecting millions of hectares of conifer forests in western North America. Current management approaches have been unable to keep pace with MPB population outbreaks

Eucalyptus delegatensis is native to the Australian Alps (subsp. delegatensis) and montane Tasmania (subsp. tasmaniensis). Post-fire regeneration mechanisms of the obligate-seeder subspecies on the Australian mainland are well-known, but less is known about the resprouter Tasmanian subspecies. In January 2016, large tracts of Eucalyptus delegatensis forests in central Tasmania, logged at different

The planting and attempted restoration of tropical forest landscapes is increasing rapidly across the globe. Two limiting aspects of large-scale forest restoration are the demand for appropriate quantities of seeds and seedlings of native species, and the ability to facilitate succession in planted sites. Species functional traits such as seed type, tree size, germination time, and wood density may

Tree biomass equations are important yet difficult, time-intensive, and expensive to develop. However, the calibration of previously developed, species-specific models could be a viable alternative, particularly for highly diverse and protected forests like the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Consequently, the primary research goal of this study was to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the potential

Nitrous oxide has a key effect on global climate development and 53% of N2O total annual emissions are related to fluxes from the soil. Land use and soil characteristics affect N2O emissions. There are not enough assessments in Argentina to quantify N2O emissions from commercial forest plantations. This research aimed at quantifying N2O fluxes from Eucalyptus grandis plantations and at identifying

Large herbivores play a key role in temperate and boreal forest ecosystems. Cervidae (deer) population densities and community structure have undergone drastic changes in many parts of the world over the past decades, often with deer populations increasing. Many studies show impacts of Cervidae on multiple ecosystem properties, including vegetation and biodiversity, at local spatial scales. At larger

Boreal forests have been intensively managed, influencing the spatiotemporal occurrence of dead wood, and leading to changes in saproxylic species assemblages. Some particular traits, such as habitat specialization, can be expected to make species sensitive to alterations in the amount, dynamics and heterogeneity of dead-wood habitats. We compared the saproxylic beetle assemblages of 320 dead standing

In mixed forests, the presence of several tree species with various ecological characteristics leads to complex stand dynamics driven by the species-specific resource-use efficiencies that ultimately drive forest productivity. In this study, we applied the concept of stand growth dominance (GD), together with the growth rates of trees as a function of their allometric expectations (AE) under size-symmetric

Gap formation and closure play important roles in forest succession. Most studies focused on regeneration within gaps, but less is known about the growth dynamics of canopy trees surrounding the gaps (i.e., gap border trees), which limits our understanding of the gap-filling process. In this study, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) was used to quantify the crown asymmetry of six canopy tree species

Reforestation is the largest natural climate solution, while potentially reversing the biodiversity crisis, especially in tropical countries. Dry tropical forests are of particular interest because they experienced greater historic loss, and offer large reforestation opportunities. This study addressed the potential of secondary forests in dry tropical systems regenerating after 60 + years in cattle

Crown dimensions such as diameter or crown projection area are important indicators for tree vigour, growing stage or production efficiency and can be used as proxies for the assessment of wood quality, leaf area and leaf biomass, biodiversity, wildlife habitat and disturbance risk to forest stability. Crown allometry can vary with site and competition conditions, but variation patterns are not still

The wood production potential that a site presents is largely represented by its climatic condition and by the affinity of its genetic material. An issue which concerns all wood producers is climate change and how it will influence wood production and wood characteristics, as they can be decisive in industrial applications. Therefore, this study aimed to: (i) verify the wood volume (WV), stem biomass

Regional-scale mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks in the first decade of the 2000s affected millions of hectares of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) in western North American forests. In Colorado, 1.4 million ha exhibited high mortality. These events prompted questions about whether historical outbreaks reached the scale of this most recent event. We aimed to reconstruct past mortality

Tree breeding programs form an integral part of sustainable forest management by providing genetically improved stock for reforestation. These programs rely on accurate phenotyping of forest trials, which become increasingly difficult to assess as trees grow larger and canopy closure occurs. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) provides three-dimensional point cloud information on forest structure which can

Ungulates frequently cause damage to human livelihoods, such as agriculture, livestock or forestry. In Sweden, forestry is the dominating land use and is a very important source of income. Moose (Alces alces) browsing commonly causes damage to young forest stands, mainly Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Factors known to affect the level of moose browsing damage are moose density, forage availability

Monoculture plantations of fast-growing trees are increasing worldwide and, in many cases, these replace highly diverse natural environments. The Mesopotamian Savannas and the Iberá marshes ecoregions of northeastern Argentina are a mosaic of habitat types in which extensive areas of natural grasslands have been replaced by the planting of non-native pines (Pinus spp.). Their impact on the natural

The intensification of agriculture has resulted in more homogeneous landscapes and declines of many species associated with farmland or other semi-natural open habitats. In parallel, forestry has also intensified causing declines in many species associated with old-growth forests. While intensive forestry negatively affects forest species, it inadvertently creates new habitats such as clear-cuts, which

Wildfire is an important natural disturbance in western North American forests and has been increasing in prevalence and severity in recent decades. Post-fire salvage logging is a common practice, however, the impacts of salvage logging on wildlife are poorly understood. We studied populations of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) and red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in a post-fire and salvage-logged

Thinning intensity is an important factor affecting forest structure and density and influencing tree growth. The main objective of the study is to evaluate how the different intensity of thinning can influence, in the short and long term, the productivity and intrinsic water use efficiency (WUEi) of Quercus robur L., a widespread European species. Three thinning types of different intensity were applied