Patterns and Processes of Forest Ecosystem Services

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 November 2020) | Viewed by 2943

Special Issue Editors

Department of Organisms and Systems Biology, Polytechnic School of Mieres, University of Oviedo, E-33600 Mieres, Asturias, Spain
Interests: forest ecosystems; ecosystems services; spatial patterns; ecological process; multi-scale
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Plant Production and Project Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, E-27002 Lugo, Spain
Interests: landscape ecological planning; spatial analysis; social-ecological systems; ecosystem services
Department of Geography, College of Science, Swansea University (College of Science, Wallace Building, Singleton Park Campus, SA2 8 PP Swansea, UK)
Interests: forest ecosystems; ecosystem services; global change; disturbances; landscape and regional ecological planning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The general aim of this Special Issue is to address the role played by patterns and processes of forest ecosystems in the provision of goods and services.

How multiple ecosystem services and related values are acknowledged, appropriated, or delivered to society is strongly related to their spatial patterns of distribution and the ecological processes that generated them.

This Issue aims to explore the effects on ecosystem services of multi-scale features such as heterogeneity, diversity and connectivity of forests, or the spatial relationships between forest ecosystems and other land uses, but also processes ranging from specific interexchanges of matter, energy, and information to more generic relationships between forests and society at the social-ecological level.

Prof. Dr. Pedro Álvarez-Álvarez
Prof. Dr. Emilio Díaz-Varela
Dr. José V. Roces-Díaz
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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.

Keywords

  • forests ecosystems
  • ecosystem services
  • spatial patterns
  • ecological processes
  • multi-scale

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 5311 KiB  
Article
Changes in Water Retention and Carbon Sequestration in the Huangshan UNESCO Global Geopark (China) from 2000 to 2015
by Ruikun Gou, Wei Li, Yanzheng Yang, Jiankun Bai, Yuchen Meng, Jun Wu, Yali Ding, Zheng Dai, Qi Shi, Shanshan Song and Guanghui Lin
Forests 2020, 11(11), 1152; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11111152 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2398
Abstract
Geopark ecosystem function assessments form an essential knowledge base for natural resource conservation and sustainable development. In this study, we evaluated changes in water retention and carbon sequestration in forests in the Huangshan United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Geopark [...] Read more.
Geopark ecosystem function assessments form an essential knowledge base for natural resource conservation and sustainable development. In this study, we evaluated changes in water retention and carbon sequestration in forests in the Huangshan United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Geopark (HUGG), China, from 2000 to 2015. We analyzed the relationship between these ecosystem functions and various controlling factors. The ecosystem functions in HUGG experienced significant changes during the study period. Water retention function increased slightly (0.15 m3 hm−2 year−1), while carbon sequestration increased sharply (25.57 g C m−2 year−1), with both showing increased spatial homogenization. Increased precipitation significantly enhanced the water retention function, whereas a temperature increase had a positive effect on the carbon sequestration. Both water retention and carbon sequestration decreased significantly with increased tourist disturbance. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and variance partitioning analysis identified the climate factors and tourist disturbance controlling water retention and carbon sequestration, respectively. The fitted structural equation model showed that climate factors had a greater total impact on water retention than tourist disturbance, while the total impact of climate factors on carbon sequestration was far less than that due to tourist disturbance. This study untangled the relationship between ecosystem functions (water retention and carbon sequestration) and influential factors in the HUGG and clarified that climate factors and tourist disturbance were determinants of changes in these ecosystem functions. The results from this study provide scientific foundations for the sustainable management of natural ecosystems in the HUGG and other geoparks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Patterns and Processes of Forest Ecosystem Services)
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