Forest Ecology: Structure and Resilience
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027 | Viewed by 283
Editors
Interests: forest ecology; forest dynamics; forest structure; climate change impacts; extreme climatic events; droughts; remote sensing
Interests: biodiversity conservation; forest ecology; forest dynamics; vegetation ecology; forest management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The structural complexity of forest ecosystems plays a fundamental role in shaping their functioning, biodiversity, and long-term stability. Over recent decades, research in forest ecology has highlighted how vertical and horizontal structure, species composition, and functional traits interact to determine forest responses to natural disturbances and human-driven pressures. In parallel, advances in remote sensing over the last decade have transformed our ability to characterize forest structure across spatial and temporal scales, enabling consistent monitoring of canopy architecture, biomass distribution, and disturbance dynamics. In the context of rapid global change, understanding the historical development, current patterns, and future trajectories of forest structure is essential for predicting ecosystem resilience and informing sustainable management strategies. Despite progress, important gaps remain. Many studies describe forest structure at single points in time, and comparative analyses across temporal scales and disturbance regimes are limited. Although remote sensing and modelling have expanded our capacity to quantify structural attributes, integrating these tools with field data and ecological mechanisms remains challenging. Uncertainties persist regarding how multiple stressors interact to drive structural shifts and which components of forest structure most influence resilience under future climate scenarios. Addressing these gaps requires linking structural patterns with ecological processes, identifying elements of forest architecture most sensitive to global change, and clarifying how interactions among species, traits, and disturbances shape long-term resilience. Original research and reviews that investigate key forest characteristics, ecosystem benefits, trade-offs, and case studies illustrating the operationalization of this knowledge into management or policy decisions are particularly encouraged.
Dr. Julián Tijerín-Triviño
Prof. Dr. Runguo Zang
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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-anonymized 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
- forest structure
- resilience
- biodiversity
- ecosystem functioning
- disturbances
- climate change
- species composition
- functional traits
- remote sensing
- forest management
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