Effects of Forest Management and Climate Change on Forest Vegetation

Forest vegetation changes have been a subject of ecological studies for over 100 years. Within this time, human impact on forest ecosystems has drastically increased, leading to habitat transformation, biodiversity loss, and species extinction. Forest ecosystems are especially susceptible to changing climate, leading to shifts in species composition. Moreover, forest management has tended to homogenize forests into monocultures of fast-growing trees. These two factors are the main drivers of transformations in forest vegetation, which can both mitigate each other or amplify their effects. In this issue, we would like to consider the impacts of climate change and forest management on a wide range of forest vegetation, with no limitations as to the degree of transformation. We invite field studies based on vegetation surveys or long-term observations from all biomes, with particular attention to regions with low data coverage. Studies might cover wide temporal, spatial, climatic, or management gradients and focus on various strata of forest ecosystems, including reconstructions of past forest vegetation as well as future predictions of changes in the geographical distribution of forest biomes driven by climatic and anthropogenic factors. We especially encourage authors to assess impacts on a wide range of biodiversity metrics and aspects, recognizing not only effects but especially mechanisms of revealed impacts. Submissions may cover widely defined forest management aspects, e.g., alien species introduction, thinning, logging, fencing, or fertilization as well as various climate change effects, e.g., species transition, herbivore and pathogen outbreaks, drought, or flooding.

Dr. Marcin K. Dyderski
Dr. Patryk Czortek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

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