Explores the relationships between forest management activities and timber quality. Sessions were organized to explore models and simulation methodologies that contribute to an understanding of tree development over time and the ways that management and harvesting activities can influence the quality of timber products recovered from those trees. Five keynote addresses, 29 plenary presentations, and 16 poster presentations covered the full breadth of forest growth and timber quality issues related to forest management. These proceedings comprise 19 papers based on presentations and posters, plus 28 abstracts for presentations. Also includes abstracts and slides from the presentations prepared by three keynote speakers. Illustrations.

Although the majority of the world’s forest ecosystems are dominated by uneven-sized multi-species stands, forest management practice and theory has focused on the development of plantation monocultures to maximize the supply of timber at low cost. Societal expectations are changing, however, and uneven-aged multi-species ecosystems, selectively managed as Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), are often believed to be superior to monocultures in addressing a wide range of expectations. This book presents methods which are relevant to CCF management and planning: analysing forest structures, silvicultural and planning, economic evaluation, based on examples in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America.

Modelling is an important tool for understanding the complexity of forest ecosystems and the variety of interactions of ecosystem components, processes and values. This book describes the hybrid approach to modelling forest ecosystems and their possible response to natural and management-induced disturbance. The book describes the FORECAST family of ecosystem management models at three different spatial scales (tree, stand and landscape), and compares them with alternative models at these three spatial scales. The book will help forest managers to understand what to expect from ecosystem-based forest models; serve as a tool for use in teaching about sustainability, scenario analysis and value trade-offs in natural resources management; and assist policy makers, managers and researches working in assessment of sustainable forest management and ecosystem management. Several real-life examples of using the FORECAST family of models in forest management and other applications are presented from countries including Canada, China, Spain and the USA, to illustrate the concepts described in the text. The book also demonstrates how these models can be extended for scenario and value trade-off analysis through visualization and educational or management games.

Shortlisted for the 2018 TWS Wildlife Publication Awards in the authored book categoryIn recent years, conflicts between ecological conservation and economic growth forced a reassessment of the motivations and goals of wildlife and forestry management. Focus shifted from game and commodity management to biodiversity conservation and ecological fore

This book demonstrates how the inclusion of nature in engineering decisions results in innovative solutions that are economically feasible, ecologically viable, and socially desirable. It advances progress toward nature-positive decisions by protection and restoration of ecosystems and respect for ecological boundaries. The topic of this book is an active area of academic research, and leading companies are including goals associated with ecosystem services in their sustainability plans. This book is the first collection of methods and applications that explicitly include the role of nature in supporting engineering activities and describes the role that ecosystems play in supporting technology and industry. It describes approaches, models, applications, and challenges for innovation and sustainability that will be useful to students and practitioners.

This book provides detailed descriptions of the forest biomass projection systems used in 22 countries in Europe and North America, as well as four European-wide systems. Separate chapters focus on the concepts of estimation of availability of woody biomass, compare and classify the different projection systems, and discuss the challenges and opportunities for the further development of these systems.

Forests grow and their biomass increases; they absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in plant tissue. Understanding the biomass of forest vegetation is essential for determining the storage of carbon in the dominant tree component and computing carbon cycling at a regional as well as global level. This book consisting of five chapters will give a comprehensive understanding of biomass production vis-à-vis carbon storage in relation to litter and nutrient dynamics of the forest by analyzing the mode and magnitude of biomass production and carbon storage as a function of various silvicultural factors.

Trees are among the longest-living organisms. They are sensitive to extreme climatic events and document the effects of environmental changes in form of structural modifications of their tissues. These modifications represent an integrated signal of complex biological responses enforced by the environment. For example, temporal change in stem increment integrates multiple information of tree performance, and wood anatomical traits may be altered by climatic extremes or environmental stress. Recent developments in preparative tools and computational image analysis enable to quantify changes in wood anatomical features, like vessel density or vessel size. Thus, impacts on their functioning can be related to climatic forcing factors. Similarly, new developments in monitoring (cambial) phenology and mechanistic modelling are enlightening the interrelationships between environmental factors, wood formation and tree performance and mortality. Quantitative wood anatomy is a reliable indicator of drought occurrence during the growing season, and therefore has been studied intensively in recent years. The variability in wood anatomy not only alters the biological and hydraulic functioning of a tree, but may also influence the technological properties of wood, with substantial impacts in forestry. On a larger scale, alterations of sapwood and phloem area and their ratios to other functional traits provide measures to detect changes in a tree’s life functions, and increasing risk of drought-induced mortality with possible impacts on hydrological processes and species composition of plant communities. Genetic variability within and across populations is assumed to be crucial for species survival in an unpredictable future world. The magnitude of genetic variation and heritability of adaptive traits might define the ability to adapt to climate change. Is there a relation between genetic variability and resilience to climate change? Is it possible to link genetic expression and climate change to obtain deeper knowledge of functional genetics? To derive precise estimates of genetic determinism it is important to define adaptive traits in wood properties and on a whole-tree scale. Understanding the mechanisms ruling these processes is fundamental to assess the impact of extreme climate events on forest ecosystems, and to provide realistic scenarios of tree responses to changing climates. Wood is also a major carbon sink with a long-term residence, impacting the global carbon cycle. How well do we understand the link between wood growth dynamics, wood carbon allocation and the global carbon cycle? Papers contribution to this Research Topic will cover a wide range of ecosystems. However, special relevance will be given to Mediterranean-type areas. These involve coastal regions of four continents, making Mediterranean-type ecosystems extremely interesting for investigating the potential impacts of global change on growth and for studying responses of woody plants under extreme environmental conditions. For example, the ongoing trend towards warmer temperatures and reduced precipitation can increase the susceptibility to fire and pests. The EU-funded COST Action STREeSS (Studying Tree Responses to extreme Events: a SynthesiS) addresses such crucial tree biological and forest ecological issues by providing a collection of important methodological and scientific insights, about the current state of knowledge, and by opinions for future research needs.