Forests are complex systems composed of interconnected structures and functions across wide spatial and temporal scales, all nested within variable and shifting climatic patterns. Forests experience continual managed and natural disturbances, and ongoing recovery and succession, expressed in post-disturbance ecological patterns and processes. Ecosystem legacies, or remnants persisting after disturbances, include memory imprints such as residual trees, deadwood, soils, seeds, above and below-ground biota, and biogeochemical cycles. These legacies can be categorized as information (e.g. genotypes), matter (e.g. biomass), and processes (e.g. cycles). Ecosystem legacies, or memory, in turn affect the ability of the forest to recover and re-organize after disturbance, or resist/adapt to climatic stress; in other words, ecological memory plays an important role in forest resilience. Understanding the role of ecosystem legacies, therefore, is important in designing forest management regimes that foster resilience as we experience global change.
This Research Topic aims to cover how forest management practices that retain ecosystem legacies, whether remaining trees, plants, deadwood, seeds, roots, forest floor, soils, fungi, bacteria, or biogeochemical and hydrological pools, affect forest structures and functions, including forest regeneration, resource acquisition, productivity, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycling, and forest dynamics, in the face of climate change. These management practices and impacts include logging, site preparation, planting, and vegetation management. We invite Original Research and Review papers testing ecosystem legacies in forest management practices.
This Research Topic has been developed in collaboration with Camille Emilie Defrenne of Oakridge National Laboratory.Forests are complex systems composed of interconnected structures and functions across wide spatial and temporal scales, all nested within variable and shifting climatic patterns. Forests experience continual managed and natural disturbances, and ongoing recovery and succession, expressed in post-disturbance ecological patterns and processes. Ecosystem legacies, or remnants persisting after disturbances, include memory imprints such as residual trees, deadwood, soils, seeds, above and below-ground biota, and biogeochemical cycles. These legacies can be categorized as information (e.g. genotypes), matter (e.g. biomass), and processes (e.g. cycles). Ecosystem legacies, or memory, in turn affect the ability of the forest to recover and re-organize after disturbance, or resist/adapt to climatic stress; in other words, ecological memory plays an important role in forest resilience. Understanding the role of ecosystem legacies, therefore, is important in designing forest management regimes that foster resilience as we experience global change.
This Research Topic aims to cover how forest management practices that retain ecosystem legacies, whether remaining trees, plants, deadwood, seeds, roots, forest floor, soils, fungi, bacteria, or biogeochemical and hydrological pools, affect forest structures and functions, including forest regeneration, resource acquisition, productivity, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycling, and forest dynamics, in the face of climate change. These management practices and impacts include logging, site preparation, planting, and vegetation management. We invite Original Research and Review papers testing ecosystem legacies in forest management practices.
This Research Topic has been developed in collaboration with Camille Emilie Defrenne of Oakridge National Laboratory.