In the context of considering natural capital in decision-making, the ecosystem services concept is steadily increasing in importance. This also holds for the forest sector in Germany. This development calls for a harmonisation of approaches and term...
Floodplain forests are considered important forest ecosystems, and providers of ecosystem functions and services. The subject of this research was to assess the level of provision of five selected ecosystem functions (climate regulation and regulatio...
Background: Phosphorus (P) availability regulates tropical forest functioning, yet how P enrichment reshapes biodiversity–ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) relationships remains poorly understood, especially in tropical cloud forests (TCFs), w...
Nitrogen cycling is a key determinant of ecosystem functioning, productivity, and carbon sequestration during forest development. This review synthesizes ecological evidence on nitrogen cycling in young forest ecosystems established through natural r...
In recent years, after the implementation of large-scale ecological restoration projects, karst areas in the South China Karst have become global “greening” hot spots. However, the biodiversity, ecosystem quality, and security patterns in...
This Special Issue brings together recent studies that advance our understanding of how forest biodiversity regulates ecosystem functions under ongoing global change [...]
Understanding the multi-scale and multi-factor driving mechanisms of ecosystem services (ES) change is crucial for combating the severe degradation of the ecosystem. We reviewed 408 publications on ecosystem structure, biodiversity, and plant functio...
Ecosystem services provide regulation, provisioning, support, and cultural benefits for human survival, but it needs to be clarified how the trade-off/synergy relationships can be used to optimize function. Based on the Web of Science (WOS) and China...
It has been widely reported that biodiversity, ecosystems, and functional traits are positively interrelated in natural forest ecosystems. However, it remains unclear whether these relationships should be expected in secondary forests. In this study,...
Plant leaf functional traits can reflect the adaptive strategies of plants to environmental changes. Exploring the patterns and causes of geographic variation in leaf functional traits is pivotal for improving ecological theory at the macroscopic sca...
Current land use and extensive modifications of natural ecosystems across the state of Louisiana are generally similar to those across the southeastern USA where rainfall supports forest ecosystems. Both intentional and unintentional consequences of...
Few plant functional types (PFTs) with fixed average traits are used in land surface models (LSMs) to consider feedback between vegetation and the changing atmosphere. It is uncertain if highly diverse vegetation requires more local PFTs. Here, we an...
Karst desertification control forests are essential for ecosystem multi functionality, but the trade-offs/synergies are unclear for forest ecosystem services. In order to clarify the trade-offs/synergies, this study was conducted on eight forest comm...
With the changing demands imposed on forests by human beings, optimizing forest management to fully utilize their multifunctionality has become a priority. Reasonable forest management measures can maintain stable forest ecosystems that fully coordin...
Soil fauna perform a plethora of vital ecological functions and are often used as indicators of ecosystem disturbances. Investigating their taxa, functional diversity, and abundance is essential to assess ecosystem resilience, detect environmental st...
Tropical forest restoration has increased in the past decades, with possible advancements given the UN declaration of the “Decade of Ecosystem Restoration”. However, robust assessments to compare ecosystem functions among restored forest...
Over the past decade, countries have strived to develop a global governance structure to halt deforestation and forest degradation, by achieving the readiness requirements for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). None...
Mankind expects from forests and forest soils benefits like pure drinking water, space for recreation, habitats for nature-near biocenoses and the production of timber as unrivaled climate-friendly raw material. An overview over 208 recent articles r...
The functional composition of plant communities (FCPC) makes a significant contribution to ecosystem properties, functions, and services. Here, we used 18 plant functional traits from the sPlot database v2.1 and the global forest management type data...
Riparian forests are important for maintaining aquatic biodiversity, yet they face increasing pressure from logging activities. This study assessed the functional diversity of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) in 30 Amazonian first-ord...
Revealing the interactions between stand structure factors and ecosystem functions is crucial for enhancing forest soil and water conservation, as well as carbon storage. However, the optimal stand structure configuration for achieving superior ecolo...
The implications of cumulative land-use decisions and shifting climate on forests, require us to integrate our understanding of ecosystems, markets, policy, and resource management into a social-ecological system. Humans play a central role in macros...
Tropical forests are critical for ecosystem functioning and are the major provider of global ecosystem services. The combined effects of climate change and anthropogenic disturbances in the tropics, however, have caused a mass decline in major ecosys...
The Wuyi Mountains in China are one of the largest and most complete subtropical forest ecosystems at the same latitude in the world. However, our limited understanding of the function of this distinctive ecosystem means that the interrelationship be...
Context: Planting forests is an important strategy to combat biodiversity loss and ecosystem service degradation, but its effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services remain uncertain. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the restoration of...
Protected areas increasingly require functional zoning approaches that integrate biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service provision, and human use. This study developed a data-driven functional zoning framework for Jirisan National Park, South Ko...
The administrative boundaries of ecosystems do not necessarily align with natural watershed boundaries, which is a significant reason for the current inefficiency and pronounced conflicts in ecological governance. Using the watershed as the fundament...
Mountain catchments integrate environmental gradients, disturbance legacies, and multiscale processes that shape how ecosystem functions vary across space and time. To better understand the role of these spatial processes, we analyzed whether ecosyst...
Habitat fragmentation threatens terrestrial arthropod biodiversity, and thereby also leads to alterations of ecosystem functioning and stability. Predation on insects and seeds by arthropods are two very important ecological functions because of thei...
Including biodiversity assessments in forest management planning is becoming increasingly important due to the importance of biodiversity for forest ecosystem resilience provision and sustainable functioning. Here we investigated the potential to inc...
Ecological restoration—whether active or passive—includes forest development, forest rehabilitation, and a range of other activities that contribute to ecosystem services. To provide a formal framework, we hypothesized how does reforestat...
Predicting how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning requires a multifaceted approach based on the partitioning of diversity into its taxonomic and functional facets and thus redundancy. Here, we investigated how species richness (S), functional...
Unexpected vegetation shift is a serious problem caused by climate change, resulting in considerable damage to local communities. It is necessary to be continuously monitored, and the soil microbial community is expected to reflect the pressure on fo...
Pine wilt disease (PWD), which is caused by the Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, is one of the most serious biological invasions in East Asia. Removal of infected pine trees is generally used to prevent the spread of PWD. However, how this strategy affect...
The intensity and frequency of ecosystem disturbances are shifting with climate change, and multiple disturbances in close succession have the potential to compound their independent effects and strongly alter ecosystem structure and function. In thi...
Studies of carbon storage using functional traits have shown that it is strongly affected by functional diversity. We explored the effects of functional diversity on carbon storage at the edge of a deciduous dipterocarp forest (DDF) ecosystem in Thai...
Understanding how biotic and environmental drivers jointly shape forest carbon dynamics over time is essential for climate-adapted management of subtropical forests. We investigated the long-term interactions between biotic factors, environmental fac...
Forest type strongly influences soil microbial community composition and associated carbon cycling, yet its influence on microbial functional traits remains poorly understood. In this study, metagenomics sequencing was used to investigate soil microb...
Converting monoculture forests into mixed forests is a widely adopted strategy to enhance forest ecosystem quality. Soil enzyme activities and their stoichiometric ratios are acknowledged as critical indicators of nutrient cycling and ecosystem multi...
Regardless of their biogeographic origins or degree of artificialization, the world’s forests are a source of a wide range of ecosystem services (ES). However, the quality and quantity of these services depend on the type of forest studied and...
Long-term monoculture management of plantation forests has caused declining soil fertility and biodiversity loss, a key bottleneck for sustainable forestry. Understory cultivation of medicinal plants, forming a multi-layered vertical structure, offer...
The spatial variation of forest ecosystem services at regional scales remains poorly understood, and few studies have explicitly analyzed how ecosystem services are distributed across different forest management types. This study assessed the spatial...
Plant ecological strategies are shaped by long-term adaptation to the environment and are beneficial to plant survival and reproduction. Research is ongoing to better understand how plants best allocate resources for growth, survival and reproduction...
We investigate the economic benefits of fundamental forest ecosystem services (FES) for the population in Germany at national level in monetary terms and estimate the spatial distribution of these benefits at county level. Specifically, we consider t...
Soil fungi often operate through diverse functional guilds, and play critical roles in driving soil nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition and the health of above-ground vegetation. However, fungal functional guilds at the early-stage restora...
We studied the impact of the neophyte tree Fraxinus pennsylvanica on the diversity of beetles in floodplain forests along the river Elbe in Germany in 2016, 2017 and in 2020, where 80% of all Fraxinus excelsior trees had died following severe drought...
Green spaces in subtropical cities are important for providing ecological services that support human well-being and serve as reservoirs for diverse microbial communities, which in turn support ecosystem functions. However, studies on the characteris...
Assessing the functions of forest ecosystems is important for a proper understanding of their role in the natural environment and society. Ecotourism emphasizes minimizing negative impacts on the environment and supports environmental education. Mode...
Forests acting as carbon storage and sequestration play an essential role in the global nutrient cycle, in which fungi are active participants. The forests cover almost all regions from the boreal, temperate to the subtropical and tropical forests. T...
Monitoring the soil–plant system in forest ecosystems is crucial for preserving their ecological functions and services. This study assessed carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes and ecoenzymatic stoichiometry as suitable indicators for character...
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