Aboveground and Belowground Interaction and Forest Carbon Cycling

Dear Colleagues,

Forest ecosystems perform a wide range of services, such as sustaining biodiversity and providing fiber and fuel, as well as possibly mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration and local precipitation regulation. Forest biomass is crucial for these processes. Accurately measuring and estimating forest biomass and elucidating its response to climate change and human activities are thus essential for both ecology and forest management development. However, due to the complexity and variability in forest communities’ composition and structure, the measurement and estimation of forest biomass, especially belowground biomass, faces great challenges. Therefore, investigating aboveground and belowground interactions and biomass in varying forest types is vital to improve our understanding of forests’ ecosystem services and functions and to determine optimal management policies.

In this Special Issue of Forests, we aim to present the latest advances in the field of aboveground and belowground interactions and biomass surveys in diverse areas, which includes original studies, synthesis, and perspectives. This Special Issue will place particular emphasis on investigating biomass (and the carbon therein), and its turnover in forests, exploring the responses of forest biomass/productivity to environmental factors. With this aim in mind, we are inviting the submission of papers detailing advances in techniques and methodologies with respect to forest biomass determination.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Aboveground and belowground interactions in forests;
• Biomass/carbon allocation between above-ground and below-ground;
• Forest productivity and climate change;
• Biomass/carbon turnover in forests;
• Litter production and decomposition;
• Biomass dynamics under forest management;
• Techniques and methodologies for aboveground and belowground biomass determination.

Dr. Jiangling Zhu
Dr. Xiaokang Hu
Prof. Dr. Wenxuan Han
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-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.