2017 March - 43 articles
During the history of the Forest Service, human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment; the time being called the Anthropocene. As we look ahead and strive to continue our mission of sustaining the health, diversity,...
Multi-cohort stands are increasingly recognized and valued because of their biological functioning, biological diversity, and resistance and resiliency to perturbations. These forest ecosystems are epitomized by multiple age classes, and often contai...
Abstract: Climate and atmospheric changes affect forest ecosystems worldwide, but little is known about the interactive effects of global change drivers on tree growth. In the present study, we analyzed single and combined effects of nitrogen (N) fer...
Leaf surface is a multifunctional interface between a plant and its environment, which affects both ecological and biological processes. Leaf surface topography directly affects microhabitat availability and ability for deposition. In this study, ato...
Tropical forests play an important role in regulating the global climate and the carbon cycle. With the changing temperature and moisture along the elevation gradient, the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Northeastern Puerto Rico provides a natural ap...
Acute Oak Decline (AOD) is a new condition affecting both species of native oak, Quercus robur and Quercus petraea, in Great Britain. The decline is characterised by a distinctive set of externally visible stem symptoms; bark cracks that “weep” dark...
Recent methods for detailed and accurate biomass and carbon stock estimation of forests have been driven by advances in remote sensing technology. The conventional approach to biomass estimation heavily relies on the tree species and site-specific al...
Stand-replacing disturbance and post-disturbance salvage-logging influence forest succession in different ways; however, limited knowledge regarding how salvage-logging affects vegetation patterns compared to natural development of forest ecosystems...
Fire and timber harvesting can diminish the extent of older forests in the near term. The amount and configuration of mature and regenerating forest in the landscape (landscape structure) influences habitat suitability for mature-forest-associated sp...
Earthworms are key organisms in forest ecosystems because they incorporate organic material into the soil and affect the activity of other soil organisms. Here, we investigated how tree species affect earthworm communities via litter and soil charact...
Inter-tree competition is considered one of the most important ecological processes of forest development. However, its importance in structuring the spatial patterns of plant communities remains controversial. We collected observational data from tw...
In this study, we assessed the impacts of climate change, forest management, and different forest productivity conditions on the water yield and profitability of loblolly pine stands in the southeastern United States. Using the 3-PG (Physiological Pr...
Juglans regia L. is distributed primarily across temperate and subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. During the last glaciation, the species survived in refugial areas that in Europe included the Balkans and the Italian peninsula, two areas...
The regional effects of climate change on forest ecosystems in the temperate climate zone of Europe can be modelled as shifts of forest vegetation zones in the landscape, northward and to higher elevations. This study applies a biogeographical model...
Biological invasions, resulting from deliberate and unintentional species transfers of insects, fungal and oomycete organisms, are a major consequence of globalization and pose a significant threat to biodiversity. Limiting damage by non-indigenous f...
Bent trees have been observed during the early years in juvenile plantations (less than 5 years-old) of Tectona grandis in Costa Rica. The relationship between bending and the morphological characteristics of the trees was explored. An evaluation of...
Effective time of thinning is essential for determining a silvicultural operation schedule. One of the most commonly used methods is the percentage of radial increase to assess the effect of thinning. However, it is difficult to determine the ideal t...
Post-fire forest regeneration is strongly influenced by abiotic and biotic heterogeneity in the pre- and post-fire environments, including fire regimes, species characteristics, landforms, hydrology, regional climate, and soil properties. Assessing t...
This paper analyses the design and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks, and sustainably managing forests (REDD+) in the West African region, an important global biodiv...
Northern peatlands store globally significant amounts of soil carbon that could be released to the atmosphere under drier conditions induced by climate change. We measured forest floor respiration (RFF) at hummocks and hollows in a treed boreal bog i...
Canopy transpiration is an important component of evapotranspiration, integrating physical and biological processes within the water and energy cycles of forests. Quercus acutissima and Cunninghamia lanceolata are two important, fast‐growing and comm...
The predominant input of available nitrogen (N) in boreal forest ecosystems originates from moss-associated cyanobacteria, which fix unavailable atmospheric N2, contribute to the soil N pool, and thereby support forest productivity. Alongside climate...
Airborne laser scanning (ALS) based stand level forest inventory has been used in Finland and other Nordic countries for several years. In the Russian Federation, ALS is not extensively used for forest inventory purposes, despite a long history of re...
Due to a mistake during the production process, there was a spelling error in the Academic Editors’ names in the original published version [...]
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) offers developing countries an opportunity to engage in global climate change mitigation through the sale of carbon credits for reforestation, avoided deforestation and forest conse...
Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry applied to photographs captured from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms is increasingly being utilised for a wide range of applications including structural characterisation of forests. The aim of this...
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) has been systematically advanced within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, implementing REDD+ in a populated landscape requires information on local cos...
(1) Elevated atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) may affect organic inputs to woodland soils with potential consequences for C dynamics and associated aggregation; (2) The Bangor Free Air Concentration Enrichment experiment compared ambient (330 ppmv) and e...
Through different policies and measures reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and enhancing conservation (REDD+) has grown into a way to induce behavior change of forest managers and landowners in tropical countries. We argue that deb...
Although the net primary productivity (NPP) of arid/semiarid ecosystem is generally thought to be controlled by precipitation, other factors like CO2 fertilization effect and temperature change may also have important impacts, especially in the cold...
Forests are important place for outdoor recreation and scenery appreciation. So in order to better meet the needs of the public, forest appreciation has received increasing attention from foresters in recent years. However, related research is still...
This paper investigates non-governmental organisation (NGO) involvement in policy processes related to Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) comparing four countries: Norway, Brazil, Indonesia, and Tanzania. Based on documents...
In forest climate governance processes such as REDD+, non-state actors take on various, more or less formal, but in fact potentially authoritative governance tasks when informing, financing, (co)deciding or implementing forest climate action. Drawing...
Forestry is an effective strategy for climate change mitigation. However, forestry activities not only sequester carbon but also release CO2. It is therefore important to formulate carbon subsidy and carbon taxation policies on the basis of the price...
In defining the environmental preferences of plant species, statistical models are part of the essential tools in the field of modern ecology. However, conventional linear models require compliance with some parametric assumptions and if these requir...
Given the strong interactions between climate and vegetation, climate change effects on natural and agricultural ecosystems are common objects of research. Reduced water availability is predicted to take place across large regions of the globe, inclu...
Driven by various initiatives and international policy processes, the concept of Forest Landscape Restoration, is globally receiving renewed attention. It is seen internationally and in national contexts as a means for improving resilience of land an...
Forests and carbon sequestration have become fundamental themes in climate change mitigation. The idea of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) has generated significant interest in forest governance from United Nations...
Soil respiration (RS, Soil CO2 efflux) is the second largest carbon (C) flux in global terrestrial ecosystems, and thus, plays an important role in global and regional C cycling; moreover, it acts as a feedback mechanism between C cycling and global...
Vietnam was one of the first countries to introduce the National REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Action Program in 2012. The country has recently revised the Program to aim for a more inclusive 2016–2020 strategy a...
Many studies have outlined the benefits for growth and reproduction resulting from thinning extremely crowded young forests regenerating after stand replacing wildfires (“thickets”). However, scarce information is available on how thinning may influ...
Deforestation and forest degradation have several negative effects on the environment including a loss of species habitats, disturbance of the water cycle and reduced ability to retain CO2, with consequences for global warming. We investigated the ev...
International bi-lateral agreements to support the conservation of rainforests to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are growing in prevalence. In 2009, the governments of Guyana and Norway established Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). We...
