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Tree growth is more limited by drought in rear-edge forests most of the times For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-04-08 J. Julio Camarero, Antonio Gazol, Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda, Marta Vergarechea, Raquel Alfaro-Sánchez, Nicolás Cattaneo, Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano
Equatorward, rear-edge tree populations are natural monitors to estimate species vulnerability to climate change. According to biogeographical theory, exposition to drought events increases with increasing aridity towards the equator and the growth of southern tree populations will be more vulnerable to drought than in central populations. However, the ecological and biogeographical margins can mismatch
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Do root modules still exist after they die? For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-04-06 Jihong Li, Chengming You, Li Zhang, Han Li, Bo Tan, Yang Liu, Lixia Wang, Sining Liu, Zhenfeng Xu
The terminal branch orders of plant root systems are increasingly known as an ephemeral module. This concept is crucial to recognize belowground processes. However, it is unknown if root modules still exist after they die? The decomposition patterns of the first five root orders were observed for 3 years using a branch-order classification, a litter-bag method and sequential sampling in a common subalpine
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New approach to calculating tree height at the regional scale For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-04-01 Congrong Li, Jinling Song, Jindi Wang
Determining the spatial distribution of tree heights at the regional area scale is significant when performing forest above-ground biomass estimates in forest resource management research. The geometric-optical mutual shadowing (GOMS) model can be used to invert the forest canopy structural parameters at the regional scale. However, this method can obtain only the ratios among the horizontal canopy
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Immediate and legacy effects of snow exclusion on soil fungal diversity and community composition For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-16 Li Zhang, Yuzhi Ren, Kaijun Yang, Zhijie Li, Bo Tan, Yang Liu, Han Li, Chengming You, Sining Liu, Lixia Wang, Rui Yin, Jian Zhang, Zhenfeng Xu
Soil fungi play crucial roles in ecosystem functions. However, how snow cover change associated with winter warming affects soil fungal communities remains unclear in the Tibetan forest. We conducted a snow manipulation experiment to explore immediate and legacy effects of snow exclusion on soil fungal community diversity and composition in a spruce forest on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Soil fungal
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Performance of statistical and machine learning-based methods for predicting biogeographical patterns of fungal productivity in forest ecosystems For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-15 Albert Morera, Juan Martínez de Aragón, José Antonio Bonet, Jingjing Liang, Sergio de-Miguel
The prediction of biogeographical patterns from a large number of driving factors with complex interactions, correlations and non-linear dependences require advanced analytical methods and modeling tools. This study compares different statistical and machine learning-based models for predicting fungal productivity biogeographical patterns as a case study for the thorough assessment of the performance
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Twenty years of drought‐mediated change in snag populations in mixed‐conifer and ponderosa pine forests in Northern Arizona For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-08 Joseph L. Ganey, Jose M. Iniguez, Scott C. Vojta, Amy R. Iniguez
Snags (standing dead trees) are important biological legacies in forest systems, providing numerous resources as well as a record of recent tree mortality. From 1997 to 2017, we monitored snag populations in drought-influenced mixed-conifer and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in northern Arizona. Snag density increased significantly in both forest types. This increase was driven largely by
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Impact of Robinia pseudoacacia stand conversion on soil properties and bacterial community composition in Mount Tai, China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-03 Kun Li, Xu Han, Ruiqiang Ni, Ge Shi, Sergio de-Miguel, Chuanrong Li, Weixing Shen, Yikun Zhang, Xingzhong Zhang
Robinia pseudoacacia is a widely planted pioneer tree species in reforestations on barren mountains in northern China. Because of its nitrogen-fixing ability, it can play a positive role in soil and forest restoration. After clear-cutting of planted stands, R. pseudoacacia stands become coppice plantations. The impacts of shifting from seedling to coppice stands on soil bacterial community and soil
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Soil-vegetation relationships in Mediterranean forests after fire For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Víctor Fernández-García, Elena Marcos, Sara Huerta, Leonor Calvo
Wildfires are one of the major environmental concerns in Mediterranean ecosystems. Thus, many studies have addressed wildfire impacts on soil and vegetation in Mediterranean forests, but the linkages between these ecosystem compartments after fire are not well understood. The aim of this work is to analyze soil-vegetation relationships in Mediterranean burned forests as well as the consistency of these
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The role of net ecosystem productivity and of inventories in climate change research: the need for “net ecosystem productivity with harvest”, NEPH For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 E. D. Schulze, R. Valentini, O. Bouriaud
There is an urgent need for quantifying the terrestrial carbon sink in the context of global carbon emissions. However, neither the flux measurements, nor the national wood balances fulfil this purpose. In this discussion article we point at various shortcomings and necessary improvements of these approaches in order to achieve a true quantification of the carbon exchange of land surfaces. We discuss
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Mapping regional forest management units: a road-based framework in Southeastern Coastal Plain and Piedmont For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-25 Di Yang, Chiung-Shiuan Fu
Management practices are one of the most important factors affecting forest structure and function. Landowners in southern United States manage forests using appropriately sized areas, to meet management objectives that include economic return, sustainability, and esthetic enjoyment. Road networks spatially designate the socio-environmental elements for the forests, which represented and aggregated
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A combination of climate, tree diversity and local human disturbance determine the stability of dry Afromontane forests For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-22 Hadgu Hishe, Louis Oosterlynck, Kidane Giday, Wanda De Keersmaecker, Ben Somers, Bart Muys
Anthropogenic disturbances are increasingly affecting the vitality of tropical dry forests. The future condition of this important biome will depend on its capability to resist and recover from these disturbances. So far, the temporal stability of dryland forests is rarely studied, even though identifying the important factors associated with the stability of the dryland forests could serve as a basis
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Using GEDI lidar data and airborne laser scanning to assess height growth dynamics in fast-growing species: a showcase in Spain For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-19 Juan Guerra-Hernández, Adrián Pascual
The NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) satellite mission aims at scanning forest ecosystems on a multi-temporal short-rotation basis. The GEDI data can validate and update statistics from nationwide airborne laser scanning (ALS). We present a case in the Northwest of Spain using GEDI statistics and nationwide ALS surveys to estimate forest dynamics in three fast-growing forest ecosystems
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Decomposition and stabilization of organic matter in an old-growth tropical riparian forest: effects of soil properties and vegetation structure For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-09 Pedro Henrique de Godoy Fernandes, Andréa Lúcia Teixeira de Souza, Marcel Okamoto Tanaka, Renata Sebastiani
Nutrient cycling in tropical forests has a large importance for primary productivity, and decomposition of litterfall is a major process influencing nutrient balance in forest soils. Although large-scale factors strongly influence decomposition patterns, small-scale factors can have major influences, especially in old-growth forests that have high structural complexity and strong plant-soil correlations
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A multi-purpose National Forest Inventory in Bangladesh: design, operationalisation and key results For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-07 Matieu Henry, Zaheer Iqbal, Kristofer Johnson, Mariam Akhter, Liam Costello, Charles Scott, Rashed Jalal, Md. Akhter Hossain, Nikhil Chakma, Olaf Kuegler, Hossain Mahmood, Rajib Mahamud, Mohammad Raqibul Hasan Siddique, Khaled Misbahuzzaman, Mohammad Main Uddin, Mohammed Al Amin, Farid Uddin Ahmed, Gael Sola, Md. Baktiar Siddiqui, Luca Birigazzi, Mahmudur Rahman, Ilias Animon, Saimunnahar Ritu, Laskar
National forest inventory and forest monitoring systems are more important than ever considering continued global degradation of trees and forests. These systems are especially important in a country like Bangladesh, which is characterised by a large population density, climate change vulnerability and dependence on natural resources. With the aim of supporting the Government’s actions towards sustainable
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White oak (Quercus fabri Hance) regenerated stump sprouts show few senescence symptoms during 40 years of growth in a natural forest For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-07 Honggang Sun, Sisheng Wu, Liwen Wu
The relationship between physiological age of parental trees and lifespan of clonal offspring is unclear. White oak (Quercus fabri Hance) has a high sprouting capability after harvest, with the regenerated sprouts being typical clonal individuals. To determine whether regenerated sprouts undergo rapid senescence compared with the parent, the senescence levels of 5-, 10-, 20- and 40-year-old regenerated
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Seamless integration of above- and under-canopy unmanned aerial vehicle laser scanning for forest investigation For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-07 Yunsheng Wang, Antero Kukko, Eric Hyyppä, Teemu Hakala, Jiri Pyörälä, Matti Lehtomäki, Aimad El Issaoui, Xiaowei Yu, Harri Kaartinen, Xinlian Liang, Juha Hyyppä
Current automated forest investigation is facing a dilemma over how to achieve high tree- and plot-level completeness while maintaining a high cost and labor efficiency. This study tackles the challenge by exploring a new concept that enables an efficient fusion of aerial and terrestrial perspectives for digitizing and characterizing individual trees in forests through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
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Forest land use discontinuity and northern red oak Quercus rubra introduction change biomass allocation and life strategy of lingonberry Vaccinium vitis-idaea For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-02 Beata Woziwoda, Marcin K. Dyderski, Andrzej M. Jagodziński
Multi-purpose use of forests in a sustainable way forces a recognition of how introduction of alien woody species in forests with different land use histories affect native plants other than trees. Lingonberry Vaccinium vitis-idaea is an important understory component of temperate and boreal forests and provider of valuable non-wood forest products. Here we studied effects of land use changes and introduction
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Management scheme influence and nitrogen addition effects on soil CO2, CH4, and N2O fluxes in a Moso bamboo plantation For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-02-02 Junbo Zhang, Quan Li, Jianhua Lv, Changhui Peng, Zhikang Gu, Lianghua Qi, Xuzhong Song, Xinzhang Song
It is still not clear whether the effects of N deposition on soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are influenced by plantation management schemes. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of conventional management (CM) versus intensive management (IM), in combination with simulated N deposition levels of control (ambient N deposition), 30 kg N·ha− 1·year− 1 (N30, ambient + 30 kg N·ha− 1·year− 1)
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Assessing above-ground biomass-functional diversity relationships in temperate forests in northern Mexico For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-31 Benedicto Vargas-Larreta, Jorge Omar López-Martínez, Edgar J. González, José Javier Corral-Rivas, Francisco Javier Hernández
Studies on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem productivity have suggested that species richness and functional diversity are the main drivers of ecosystem processes. Several patterns on this relationship have been found, including positive, unimodal, negative, and neutral trends, keeping the issue controversial. In this study, taxonomic diversity and functional diversity as drivers
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Predisposing factors’ effects on mortality of oak (Quercus) and hickory (Carya) species in mature forests undergoing mesophication in Appalachian Ohio For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-28 Don C. Radcliffe, David M. Hix, Stephen N. Matthews
Mature oak (Quercus spp.) and hickory (Carya spp.) trees are gradually being replaced by more shade-tolerant tree species across the eastern U.S., likely due to fire suppression and increased precipitation. Oaks and hickories are highly valuable to wildlife; therefore, studying their mortality patterns can provide information on the longevity of habitat quality for many animal species. Oak mortality
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National Forest Inventories capture the multifunctionality of managed forests in Germany For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-27 Nadja K. Simons, María R. Felipe-Lucia, Peter Schall, Christian Ammer, Jürgen Bauhus, Nico Blüthgen, Steffen Boch, François Buscot, Markus Fischer, Kezia Goldmann, Martin M. Gossner, Falk Hänsel, Kirsten Jung, Peter Manning, Thomas Nauss, Yvonne Oelmann, Rodica Pena, Andrea Polle, Swen C. Renner, Michael Schloter, Ingo Schöning, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Emily F. Solly, Elisabeth Sorkau, Barbara Stempfhuber
Forests perform various important ecosystem functions that contribute to ecosystem services. In many parts of the world, forest management has shifted from a focus on timber production to multi-purpose forestry, combining timber production with the supply of other forest ecosystem services. However, it is unclear which forest types provide which ecosystem services and to what extent forests primarily
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Bridging mapping and simulation modelling in the ecosystem service assessments of boreal forests: effects of bioenergy production on carbon dynamics For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-24 Anu Akujärvi, Anna Repo, Altti M. Akujärvi, Jari Liski
Increasing the use of forest harvest residues for bioenergy production reduces greenhouse emissions from the use of fossil fuels. However, it may also reduce carbon stocks and habitats for deadwood dependent species. Consequently, simple tools for assessing the trade-offs of alternative management practices on forest dynamics and their services to people are needed. The objectives of this study were
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Effects of three coniferous plantation species on plant‐soil feedbacks and soil physical and chemical properties in semi‐arid mountain ecosystems For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-21 Chun Han, Yongjing Liu, Cankun Zhang, Yage Li, Tairan Zhou, Salman Khan, Ning Chen, Changming Zhao
Large-scale afforestation can significantly change the ground cover and soil physicochemical properties, especially the soil fertility maintenance and water conservation functions of artificial forests, which are very important in semi-arid mountain ecosystems. However, how different tree species affect soil nutrients and soil physicochemical properties after afforestation, and which is the best plantation
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Organic mulching promotes soil organic carbon accumulation to deep soil layer in an urban plantation forest For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Xiaodan Sun, Gang Wang, Qingxu Ma, Jiahui Liao, Dong Wang, Qingwei Guan, Davey L. Jones
Soil organic carbon (SOC) is important for soil quality and fertility in forest ecosystems. Labile SOC fractions are sensitive to environmental changes, which reflect the impact of short-term internal and external management measures on the soil carbon pool. Organic mulching (OM) alters the soil environment and promotes plant growth. However, little is known about the responses of SOC fractions in
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Thinning effects on biomass and element concentrations of roots in adjacent hornbeam and oak stands in Istanbul, Turkey For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Serdar Akburak, Ender Makineci
Thinning is a commonly used treatment in forest management which affects the tree root systems. The effects of thinning on element concentrations and seasonal change of roots were evaluated in adjacent oak (Quercus frainetto Ten.) and hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.) stands according to the different root diameter classes. Two replicated control and thinning plots (50 m × 50 m) were set for each species
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Influence of sampling intensity on performance of two-phase forest inventory using airborne laser scanning For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-12-08 Marek Lisańczuk, Krzysztof Mitelsztedt, Karolina Parkitna, Grzegorz Krok, Krzysztof Stereńczak, Emilia Wysocka-Fijorek, Stanisław Miścicki
Forest inventories have always been a primary information source concerning the forest ecosystem state. Various applied survey approaches arise from the numerous important factors during sampling scheme planning. Paramount aspects include the survey goal and scale, target population inherent variation and patterns, and available resources. The last factor commonly inhibits the goal, and compromises
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Machine learning and geostatistical approaches for estimating aboveground biomass in Chinese subtropical forests For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-26 Huiyi Su, Wenjuan Shen, Jingrui Wang, Arshad Ali, Mingshi Li
Aboveground biomass (AGB) is a fundamental indicator of forest ecosystem productivity and health and hence plays an essential role in evaluating forest carbon reserves and supporting the development of targeted forest management plans. Here, we proposed a random forest/co-kriging framework that integrates the strengths of machine learning and geostatistical approaches to improve the mapping accuracies
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Hydrological functioning of forested catchments, Central Himalayan Region, India For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-24 Nuzhat Qazi
Central Himalayan forested catchments provide fresh water supply and innumerable ecosystem services to millions of people. Hence, the understanding of linkages between forests and water is very crucial for availability and quality of water at catchment scale. Therefore, the present study aims to understand the hydrological response of two forested catchments (namely, Arnigad and Bansigad) in the Central
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A note on the estimation of variance for big BAF sampling For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-20 Jeffrey H. Gove, Timothy G. Gregoire, Mark J. Ducey, Thomas B. Lynch
The double sampling method known as “big BAF sampling” has been advocated as a way to reduce sampling effort while still maintaining a reasonably precise estimate of volume. A well-known method for variance determination, Bruce’s method, is customarily used because the volume estimator takes the form of a product of random variables. However, the genesis of Bruce’s method is not known to most foresters
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The relationships among structure variables of larch forests in China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-15 Wenjing Fang, Qing Zhao, Qiong Cai, Anwar Eziz, Guoping Chen, Yuhao Feng, Heng Zhang, Jiangling Zhu, Chengjun Ji, Zhiyao Tang, Jingyun Fang
Larch (Larix Mill.) forests are widely distributed in the upper parts of mountainous areas in China, playing vital roles in constructing mountain landscapes and maintaining mountain environments. Despite their importance, our knowledges on the large-scale patterns of structure characteristics and the relationships between different structure variables are unclear. In this paper, we investigated 155
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Mapping forest age using National Forest Inventory, airborne laser scanning, and Sentinel-2 data For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-10 Johannes Schumacher, Marius Hauglin, Rasmus Astrup, Johannes Breidenbach
The age of forest stands is critical information for forest management and conservation, for example for growth modelling, timing of management activities and harvesting, or decisions about protection areas. However, area-wide information about forest stand age often does not exist. In this study, we developed regression models for large-scale area-wide prediction of age in Norwegian forests. For model
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Nest-site selection by the white-tailed eagle and black stork – implications for conservation practice For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Grzegorz Zawadzki, Dorota Zawadzka, Anna Sołtys, Stanisław Drozdowski
Nesting trees and habitat represent the key factor underpinning stand selection by forest-dwelling birds. While two large European species – the black stork (Ciconia nigra L.) and white-tailed eagle (Haliaaetus albicilla L.) – are known to require old, large trees for nesting, we sought to investigate further by comparing species requirements at the levels of the nesting tree, nesting stand, and landscape
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Testing allometric scaling relationships in plant roots For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-10-23 Qiang Deng, Zhiyou Yuan, Xinrong Shi, T. Ryan Lock, Robert L. Kallenbach
Metabolic scaling theory predicts that plant productivity and biomass are both size-dependent. However, this theory has not yet been tested in plant roots. In this study, we tested how metabolic scaling occurs in plants using a comprehensive plant root dataset made up of 1016 observations from natural habitats. We generated metabolic scaling exponents by log-transformation of root productivity versus
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Improving precision of field inventory estimation of aboveground biomass through an alternative view on plot biomass For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-10-23 Christoph Kleinn, Steen Magnussen, Nils Nölke, Paul Magdon, Juan Gabriel Álvarez-González, Lutz Fehrmann, César Pérez-Cruzado
We contrast a new continuous approach (CA) for estimating plot-level above-ground biomass (AGB) in forest inventories with the current approach of estimating AGB exclusively from the tree-level AGB predicted for each tree in a plot, henceforth called DA (discrete approach). With the CA, the AGB in a forest is modelled as a continuous surface and the AGB estimate for a fixed-area plot is computed as
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Rodent-mediated plant community competition: what happens to the seeds after entering the adjacent stands? For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Haibin Kang, Mingjie Chang, Shutong Liu, Zhi Chao, Xinping Zhang, Dexiang Wang
Seed dispersal by scatter-hoarding animals can affect the developmental dynamics of plant communities. However, how animals might participate in plant inter-community competition has rarely been investigated. Forest community junction is an area where the competition between plant communities is most prominent and animal activity is more frequent. At present, little is known about how scatter-hoarding
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Selective logging enhances ecosystem multifunctionality via increase of functional diversity in a Pinus yunnanensis forest in Southwest China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-09-24 Xiaobo Huang, Shuaifeng Li, Jianrong Su
The impacts of selective logging on ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) remain largely unexplored. In this study, we analyzed the response of nine variables related to four ecosystem functions (i.e. nutrient cycling, soil carbon stocks, decomposition, and wood production) to five selective logging intensities in a Pinus yunnanensis-dominated forest. We included a control group with no harvest to evaluate
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Comparison of the local pivotal method and systematic sampling for national forest inventories For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-09-24 Minna Räty, Mikko Kuronen, Mari Myllymäki, Annika Kangas, Kai Mäkisara, Juha Heikkinen
The local pivotal method (LPM) utilizing auxiliary data in sample selection has recently been proposed as a sampling method for national forest inventories (NFIs). Its performance compared to simple random sampling (SRS) and LPM with geographical coordinates has produced promising results in simulation studies. In this simulation study we compared all these sampling methods to systematic sampling.
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Discovering forest height changes based on spaceborne lidar data of ICESat-1 in 2005 and ICESat-2 in 2019: a case study in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-09-15 Tong Sun, Jianbo Qi, Huaguo Huang
The assessment of change in forest ecosystems, especially the change of canopy heights, is essential for improving global carbon estimates and understanding effects of climate change. Spaceborne lidar systems provide a unique opportunity to monitor changes in the vertical structure of forests. NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellites, ICESat-1 for the period 2003 to 2009, and ICESat-2 (available
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Evaluating the impact of sampling schemes on leaf area index measurements from digital hemispherical photography in Larix principis-rupprechtii forest plots For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Jie Zou, Wei Hou, Ling Chen, Qianfeng Wang, Peihong Zhong, Yong Zuo, Shezhou Luo, Peng Leng
Digital hemispherical photography (DHP) is widely used to estimate the leaf area index (LAI) of forest plots due to its advantages of high efficiency and low cost. A crucial step in the LAI estimation of forest plots via DHP is choosing a sampling scheme. However, various sampling schemes involving DHP have been used for the LAI estimation of forest plots. To date, the impact of sampling schemes on
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Effects of climate, biotic factors, and phylogeny on allometric relationships: testing the metabolic scaling theory in plantations and natural forests across China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-08-21 Han Sun, Xiangping Wang, Dayong Fan
Metabolic scaling theory (MST) is still in debate because observed allometric exponents often deviate from MST predictions, and can change significantly depending on environment, phylogeny, and disturbance. We assembled published scaling exponents from literatures for three allometric relationships linked to biomass allocation: leaf biomass-diameter (L-D), stem biomass-diameter (S-D), and root biomass-diameter
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Regeneration patterns of key pine species in a mixed-pine forest indicate a positive effect of variable retention harvesting and an increase in recruitment with time For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-08-16 Priscilla A. Nyamai, P. Charles Goebel, R. Gregory Corace, David M. Hix
Many fire-dependent forests have experienced significant declines in species, structural, and functional diversity. These changes are attributed in part to traditional management approaches that were dominated by even-aged regeneration methods such as clearcutting. Variable retention harvesting (VRH) is an ecologically based forestry practice that involves retention of some mature overstory trees and
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Variations in the natural 13C and 15N abundance of plants and soils under long-term N addition and precipitation reduction: interpretation of C and N dynamics For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-08-16 Guoyong Yan, Shijie Han, Mingxin Zhou, Wenjing Sun, Binbin Huang, Honglin Wang, Yajuan Xing, Qinggui Wang
The nitrogen isotope natural abundance (δ15N) provides integrated information on ecosystem N dynamics, and carbon isotope natural abundance (δ13C) has been used to infer how water-using processes of plants change in terrestrial ecosystems. However, how δ13C and δ15N abundances in plant life and soils respond to N addition and water availability change is still unclear. Thus, δ13C and δ15N abundances
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The Siberian moth (Dendrolimus sibiricus), a pest risk assessment for Norway For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-27 Daniel Flø, Trond Rafoss, Michael Wendell, Leif Sundheim
The Siberian moth (Dendrolimus sibiricus) is a serious pest of conifers in Russia, Northern Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. The western border of the pest’s distribution in Russia is disputed, but it is present west of the 60th meridian east. The pest has the potential to defoliate a wide range of conifers. The pest is not present in Norway or other European countries, except Russia. Natural spread
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Effects of firewood harvesting intensity on biodiversity and ecosystem services in shrublands of northern Patagonia For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-19 Matías G. Goldenberg, Facundo J. Oddi, Juan H. Gowda, Lucas A. Garibaldi
Forest management has historically focused on provisioning of goods (e.g. timber, biomass), but there is an increasing interest to manage forests also to maintain biodiversity and to provide other ecosystem services (ES). We evaluated the effects of firewood harvesting intensity on biodiversity and different ES in three contrasting shrubland sites in northern Patagonia (Argentina). At each site, four
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A century of National Forest Inventory in Norway - informing past, present, and future decisions. For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-17 Johannes Breidenbach,Aksel Granhus,Gro Hylen,Rune Eriksen,Rasmus Astrup
In the early twentieth century, forestry was one of the most important sectors in Norway and an agitated discussion about the perceived decline of forest resources due to over-exploitation was ongoing. To base the discussion on facts, the young state of Norway established Landsskogtakseringen – the world’s first National Forest Inventory (NFI). Field work started in 1919 and was carried out by county
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Importance of overstorey attributes for understorey litter production and nutrient cycling in European forests. For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-12 Dries Landuyt,Evy Ampoorter,Cristina C Bastias,Raquel Benavides,Sandra Müller,Michael Scherer-Lorenzen,Fernando Valladares,Safaa Wasof,Kris Verheyen
In contrast with the negligible contribution of the forest understorey to the total aboveground phytobiomass of a forest, its share in annual litter production and nutrient cycling may be more important. Whether and how this functional role of the understorey differs across forest types and depends upon overstorey characteristics remains to be investigated. We sampled 209 plots of the FunDivEUROPE
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Predicting stand age in managed forests using National Forest Inventory field data and airborne laser scanning For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-05 Matti Maltamo, Hermanni Kinnunen, Annika Kangas, Lauri Korhonen
The aim of this study was to construct a nationwide stand age model by using National Forest Inventory (NFI) data and nationwide airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. In plantation forestry, age is usually known. While this is not the case in boreal managed forests, age is still seldom predicted in forest management inventories. Measuring age accurately in situ is also very laborious. On the other hand
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Mapping aboveground biomass and its prediction uncertainty using LiDAR and field data, accounting for tree-level allometric and LiDAR model errors For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-03 Svetlana Saarela, André Wästlund, Emma Holmström, Alex Appiah Mensah, Sören Holm, Mats Nilsson, Jonas Fridman, Göran Ståhl
The increasing availability of remotely sensed data has recently challenged the traditional way of performing forest inventories, and induced an interest in model-based inference. Like traditional design-based inference, model-based inference allows for regional estimates of totals and means, but in addition for wall-to-wall mapping of forest characteristics. Recently Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-based
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Allometric models for estimating aboveground biomass in the tropical woodlands of Ghana, West Africa For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Raymond Aabeyir, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Wilson Agyei Agyare, Michael J. C. Weir
Modelling aboveground biomass (AGB) in forest and woodland ecosystems is critical for accurate estimation of carbon stocks. However, scarcity of allometric models for predicting AGB remains an issue that has not been adequately addressed in Africa. In particular, locally developed models for estimating AGB in the tropical woodlands of Ghana have received little attention. In the absence of locally
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Trees of Panama: A complete checklist with every geographic range For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-29 Richard Condit, Salomón Aguilar, Rolando Pérez
Central America is one of the most diverse floristic provinces in the world, but comprehensive plant lists for the region are incomplete and need frequent updating. Full geographic ranges of individual species are seldom known. Our detailed forest inventory plots of Panama thus lack a global geographic perspective. In order to provide one, we assembled a thoroughly vetted checklist of all tree species
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Organic matter quality of forest floor as a driver of C and P dynamics in acacia and eucalypt plantations established on a Ferralic Arenosols, Congo For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-06-27 Lydie-Stella Koutika, Lorenzo Cafiero, Annamaria Bevivino, Agustín Merino
Land-use change and forest management may alter soil organic matter (SOM) and nutrient dynamics, due in part to alterations in litter input and quality. Acacia was introduced in eucalypt plantations established in the Congolese coastal plains to improve soil fertility and tree growth. Eucalypt trees were expected to benefit from N2 fixed by acacia. However, some indicators suggest a perturbation in
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Litterfall dynamics and soil carbon and nitrogen stocks in the Brazilian palm swamp ecosystems For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-06-23 Gracielle de Brito Sales, Taynan Aquilles Marinho Lessa, Daniela Aparecida Freitas, Maria das Dores Magalhães Veloso, Maria Ligia de Souza Silva, Luiz Arnaldo Fernandes, Leidivan Almeida Frazão
This study aimed to determine the litterfall production, accumulation, decomposition rate and nutrient stocks, and to estimate the soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks in three palm swamp ecosystems with different land use intensities in the Southeast of Brazil. Three palm swamp ecosystems with different land use intensities were evaluated: Agua Doce (AD), conserved area; Capivara (CV), area with
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Effects of afforestation of agricultural land with grey alder (Alnus incana (L.) Moench) on soil chemical properties, comparing two contrasting soil groups For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-06-19 Oļģerts Nikodemus, Dārta Kaupe, Imants Kukuļs, Guntis Brūmelis, Raimonds Kasparinskis, Iluta Dauškane, Agita Treimane
Natural afforestation of former agricultural lands with alder species is common in Europe. Symbiotic nitrogen fixation by actinomycetes associated with alder species has been widely used for improvement of soil properties of abandoned agricultural lands, but relatively little is known of the interactions of these processes with soil type and chemical composition. We conducted a space-for time study
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Analysing the quality of Swiss National Forest Inventory measurements of woody species richness. For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 Berthold Traub,Rafael O Wüest
Under ongoing climate and land-use change, biodiversity is continuously decreasing and monitoring biodiversity is becoming increasingly important. National Forest Inventory (NFI) programmes provide valuable time-series data on biodiversity and thus contribute to assessments of the state and trends in biodiversity, as well as ecosystem functioning. Data quality in this context is of paramount relevance
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Dynamics of dead wood decay in Swiss forests For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-06-09 Oleksandra Hararuk, Werner A. Kurz, Markus Didion
Forests are an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle and can be net sources or sinks of CO2, thus mitigating or exacerbating the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. While forest productivity is often inferred from national-scale yield tables or from satellite products, forest C emissions resulting from dead organic matter decay are usually simulated, therefore it is important
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Species richness, forest types and regeneration of Schima in the subtropical forest ecosystem of Yunnan, southwestern China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-20 Cindy Q. Tang, Peng-Bin Han, Shuaifeng Li, Li-Qin Shen, Diao-Shun Huang, Yun-Fang Li, Ming-Chun Peng, Chong-Yun Wang, Xiao-Shuang Li, Wei Li, Wei Wang, Zhi-Ying Zhang
Schima genus of Theaceae is confined to subtropics and tropics of South, East and Southeast Asia. Thirteen species of Schima are distributed in subtropical China. Many of them appear as dominant canopy species in the subtropical forests. To date, Schima species richness distribution patterns of China have remained unknown. Meanwhile, there has been a longtime debate as to whether forests dominated
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Addressing soil protection concerns in forest ecosystem management under climate change For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-19 Ana Raquel Rodrigues, Brigite Botequim, Catarina Tavares, Patrícia Pécurto, José G. Borges
Climate change may strongly influence soil erosion risk, namely through variations in the precipitation pattern. Forests may contribute to mitigate the impacts of climate change on soil erosion and forest managers are thus challenged by the need to define strategies that may protect the soil while addressing the demand for other ecosystem services. Our emphasis is on the development of an approach
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Accuracy assessment and error analysis for diameter at breast height measurement of trees obtained using a novel backpack LiDAR system For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-09 Yuyang Xie, Jie Zhang, Xiangwu Chen, Shuxin Pang, Hui Zeng, Zehao Shen
The LiBackpack is a recently developed backpack light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system that combines the flexibility of human walking with the nearby measurement in all directions to provide a novel and efficient approach to LiDAR remote sensing, especially useful for forest structure inventory. However, the measurement accuracy and error sources have not been systematically explored for this system
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Soil-plant co-stimulation during forest vegetation restoration in a subtropical area of southern China For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-08 Chan Chen, Xi Fang, Wenhua Xiang, Pifeng Lei, Shuai Ouyang, Yakov Kuzyakov
Soil and vegetation have a direct impact on the process and direction of plant community succession, and determine the structure, function, and productivity of ecosystems. However, little is known about the synergistic influence of soil physicochemical properties and vegetation features on vegetation restoration. The aim of this study was to investigate the co-evolution of soil physicochemical properties
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Influence of voxel size on forest canopy height estimates using full-waveform airborne LiDAR data For. Ecosyst. (IF 2.696) Pub Date : 2020-05-07 Cheng Wang, Shezhou Luo, Xiaohuan Xi, Sheng Nie, Dan Ma, Youju Huang
Forest canopy height is a key forest structure parameter. Precisely estimating forest canopy height is vital to improve forest management and ecological modelling. Compared with discrete-return LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), small-footprint full-waveform airborne LiDAR (FWL) techniques have the capability to acquire precise forest structural information. This research mainly focused on the influence
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