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Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests

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A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Inventory, Modeling and Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 24831

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Teresa Fidalgo Fonseca

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Guest Editor

Department of Forestry Sciences and Landscape Architecture (CIFAP), University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, 5001-801 Vila Real, Portugal Forest Research Centre (CEF), School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: silviculture; forest management, biometrics; forest inventory; data science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Gurveen Arora

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Co-Guest Editor

Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, Biodiversity and Climate Change Division, PO New Forest, Dehradun 248006, Uttarakhand, India
Interests: silviculture and carbon forestry; remote sensing and climate change

Prof. Dr. Peter Spathelf

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Co-Guest Editor

Department of Applied Silviculture, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Schicklerstrasse, 16225 Eberswalde, Germany
Interests: ecology and silviculture of pine; pine (management) and climate change; production of high-value timber of pine; subtropical and tropical pine plantations
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xiongqing Zhang

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Co-Guest Editor

Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Interests: quantified silviculture; forest productivity; stand structure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Tadesse Wubalem

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Co-Guest Editor

Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute (EEFRI), Forest Resources Utilization Research, PO Box 30804, Addis, Ababa Ethiopia
Interests: forest products utilization; plantation forest; tree improvement

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Pine forests are widely represented around the world, and play important ecological and economic roles. Climate change might affect pine forest dynamics and the management of these forests. Additionally, changing policies and the diversification of primary uses (sawmill, pellets, panels, pulp and paper, among others) lead to different silvicultural regimes. With this Special Issue, researchers are invited to present the results of their studies on the dynamics of pine forests (regeneration, growth, and mortality), on statistical models which describe those dynamics, or on the silvicultural guidelines for distinct management purposes (timber, biomass, energy, carbon). The submitted papers can focus on factors which influence the natural regeneration process failures such as water stress, soil degradation after fire, and site factors. Papers about the dynamics of seedling growth, tree or stand development, or mortality associated with tree competition or driven by external factors are also welcome.

With this Special Issue, we hope to discuss the latest research and compile bibliographic reviews about the natural dynamics of pine forests, models describing those dynamics or supportive of silvicultural guidelines, and to identify adaptive management measures to deal with challenging conditions in pine forests of different species around the area of distribution.

This special issue is sponsored by IUFRO research unit 1.01.10 - Ecology and silviculture of pine.

Dr. Teresa Fidalgo Fonseca
Guest Editor
Dr. Gurveen Arora
Prof. Dr. Peter Spathelf
Dr. Xiongqing Zhang
Dr. Tadesse Wubalem
Co-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

regeneration dynamics
tree- and stand-level growth
self-thinning
abiotic and biotic risks
wood volume
biomass and energy
stand management
thinning
tree and forest models
ecology and silviculture of pine

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

23 pages, 2656 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of Forest Management in Large Areas Arising from Grouping of Several Management Bodies: An Application in Northern Portugal

by Margarida Cabral, Teresa Fidalgo Fonseca and Adelaide Cerveira

Forests 2022, 13(3), 471; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13030471 - 18 Mar 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2138

Abstract

The success of forest management towards achieving desired outcomes depends on various factors and can be improved through forest planning based on optimization approaches. Regardless of the owner type (state, private or common land) and/or governance model, the number of owners or management bodies considered in most studies is low, typically involving one owner/management body or a very small group. This study extends the approach of formulating a Forest Management Plan (FMP) to a large forest area, consisting of areas with different management bodies. The FMP model returns the harvest schedule that maximizes the volume of wood harvested during the planning horizon, while ensuring (1) sustainability and environmental constraints at the overall scale and (2) independent revenues for each management body. The FMP is tested in a real forested area, consisting of 22 common lands, governed by local communities for a planning period of 30 years. The results show that our approach is appropriate for several management bodies. When evaluating the impact of grouping areas (and their owner bodies) on the total volume removed, a comparison of the FMP model with an alternative model that allows for independent management (FMP-IND) showed significant differences, in terms of total volume removed at the end of the horizon. Global management leads to a reduction of about 8.6% in the total removed volume; however, it will ensure a heritage of well-diversified stands, in terms of age classes. The results highlight the importance of managing multi-stakeholder forest areas as a whole, instead of being managed independently, if the aim is to assure more sustainable management of forest resources in the mid and long term. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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16 pages, 2874 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Litterfall and Accumulated Nutrients in Pinus taeda Plantation and Native Forest in Southern Brazil

by Matheus Severo de Souza Kulmann, Grasiele Dick and Mauro Valdir Schumacher

Forests 2021, 12(12), 1791; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12121791 - 17 Dec 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2314

Abstract

The dynamics of the production, chemical composition, and accumulated nutrients in litterfall are essential to understand the availability of nutrients and, consequently, possible gains in productivity in different forest types. Thus, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the litterfall and the accumulated nutrients in litterfall in a Pinus taeda plantation and native forest from southern Brazil. Two forest types: (i) an eight-year-old Pinus taeda L. plantation; and (ii) a native forest fragment, located in southern Brazil, were studied for four years. The monthly and annual litterfall production, chemical composition, accumulated nutrients, and nutrient use efficiency of the litterfall were evaluated. The Pinus taeda plantation showed higher values of leaves/needles litterfall and N, P, K, Ca and Mg use efficiency. This demonstrates that Pinus taeda plantations have a high production of needle biomass, which, in turn, has increased cell division, favoring the entry of these nutrients into the soil via decomposition. Our results show that total litterfall production did not significantly influence the accumulated nutrient and nutrient efficiency of litterfall, demonstrating that evaluating litterfall fractionation, such as leaves/needles, twigs and miscellaneous, is essential to understand the quantity and quality of litterfall and, thus, the nutrient cycling, which can contribute to possible silvicultural practices to be implemented, which can provide growth gains in forest types. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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13 pages, 4204 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of Fire Severity and Woody Debris on Tree Regeneration for Exploratory Well Pads in Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana) Forests

by Angelo T. Filicetti, Ryan A. LaPointe and Scott E. Nielsen

Forests 2021, 12(10), 1330; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12101330 - 29 Sep 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1846

Abstract

Restoring anthropogenic footprints to pre-disturbance conditions or minimizing their long-term impacts is an important goal in conservation. Many footprints, particularly if left alone, have wide-ranging effects on biodiversity. In Canada, energy exploration footprints result in forest dissection and fragmentation contributing to declines in woodland caribou. Developing cost effective strategies to restore forests and thus conserving the woodland caribou habitat is a conservation priority. In this study, we compared the effects of wildfire and local variation in the amount of residual woody debris on natural regeneration in jack pine on exploratory well pads in Alberta’s boreal forest. Specifically, we investigated how footprint size, fire severity (overstory tree mortality), ground cover of fine and coarse woody debris, and adjacent stand characteristics (i.e., height, age, and cover), affected tree regeneration densities and height using negative binomial count and linear models (Gaussian), respectively. Regeneration density was 30% higher on exploratory well pads than adjacent forests, increased linearly with fire severity on the exploratory well pads (2.2% per 1% increase in fire severity), but non-linearly in adjacent forests (peaking at 51,000 stems/ha at 72% fire severity), and decreased with amount of woody debris on exploratory well pads (2.7% per 1% increase in woody debris cover). The height of regenerating trees on exploratory well pads decreased with fire severity (0.56 cm per 1% increase in fire severity) and was non-linearly related to coarse woody debris (peaking at 286 cm at 9.4% coarse woody debris cover). Heights of 3 and 5 m on exploratory well pads were predicted by 13- and 21-years post-fire, respectively. Our results demonstrate that wildfires can stimulate natural recovery of fire-adapted species, such as jack pine, on disturbances as large as exploratory well pads (500–1330 m²) and that the type and amount of woody debris affects these patterns. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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14 pages, 2352 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Determining an Accurate and Cost-Effective Individual Height-Diameter Model for Mongolian Pine on Sandy Land

by Yangang Han, Zeyong Lei, Albert Ciceu, Yanping Zhou, Fengyan Zhou and Dapao Yu

Forests 2021, 12(9), 1144; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12091144 - 24 Aug 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1901

Abstract

Height-diameter (H-D) models are important tools for forest management practice. Sandy Mongolian pine plantations (Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica) are a major component of the Three-North Afforestation Shelterbelt in Northern China. However, few H-D models are available for Mongolian pine plantations. In this paper we compared different equations found in the literature for predicting tree height, using diameter at breast height and additional stand-level predictor variables. We tested if the additional stand-level predictor variable is necessary to produce more accurate results. The dominant height was used as a stand-level predictor variable to describe the variation of the H-D relationship among plots. We found that the basic mixed-effects H-D model provided a similar predictive accuracy as the generalized mixed-effects H-D model. Moreover, it had the advantage of reducing the sampling effort. The basic mixed-effects H-D model calibration, in which the heights of the two thickest trees in the plot were included to calibrate the random effects, resulted in accurate and reliable individual tree height estimations. Thus, the basic mixed-effects H-D model with the above-described calibration design can be an accurate and cost-effective solution for estimating the heights of Mongolian pine trees in northern China. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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15 pages, 2156 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resilience of a Fire-Maintained Pinus palustris Woodland to Catastrophic Wind Disturbance: 10 Year Results

by J. Davis Goode, Jonathan S. Kleinman and Justin L. Hart

Forests 2021, 12(8), 1051; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12081051 - 07 Aug 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1762

Abstract

Increased interest in ecosystem recovery and resilience has been driven by concerns over global change-induced shifts in forest disturbance regimes. In frequent-fire forests, catastrophic wind disturbances modify vegetation-fuels-fire feedbacks, and these alterations may shift species composition and stand structure to alternative states relative to pre-disturbance conditions. We established permanent inventory plots in a catastrophically wind-disturbed and fire-maintained Pinus palustris woodland in the Alabama Fall Line Hills to examine ecosystem recovery and model the successional and developmental trajectory of the stand through age 50 years. We found that sapling height was best explained by species. Species with the greatest mean heights likely utilized different regeneration mechanisms. The simulation model projected that at age 50 years, the stand would transition to be mixedwood and dominated by Quercus species, Pinus taeda, and P. palustris. The projected successional pathway is likely a function of residual stems that survived the catastrophic wind disturbance and modification of vegetation-fuels-fire feedbacks. Although silvicultural interventions will be required for this system to exhibit pre-disturbance species composition and structure, we contend that the ecosystem was still resilient to the catastrophic disturbance because similar silvicultural treatments were required to create and maintain the P. palustris woodland prior to the disturbance event. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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18 pages, 3269 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Forest Management of Pinus pinaster Ait. in Unbalanced Forest Structures Arising from Disturbances—A Framework Proposal of Decision Support Systems (DSS)

by Paulo Costa, Adelaide Cerveira, Jan Kašpar, Robert Marušák and Teresa Fidalgo Fonseca

Forests 2021, 12(8), 1031; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12081031 - 03 Aug 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1643

Abstract

Forests assume a great socioeconomic and environmental importance, requiring good management decisions to value and care for these natural resources. In Portugal, forest land use accounts for 34.5% of the continental area. The softwood species with the highest representation is maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.). Traditionally, the species is managed as pure and even-aged stands for timber production, with a rotation age of 45 to 50 years. Depending on the initial stand density, the stands are thinned 2 to 4 times during the rotation period. Disturbances associated with forest fires have a negative impact on the age structure of stands over time, as they result in a narrow range of stand ages. This age homogenization over large forest areas increases with the recurrence and size of forest fires, bringing new challenges to forest management, namely the difficulty in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the wood supply. The problem aggravates with the increasing demand pressure on pine wood. This article aims to suggest a framework of DSS for Pinus pinaster that can effectively support the management of forest areas under these circumstances, i.e., narrow age ranges and high demand of harvested timber volume. A communal woodland area in the Northern region of Portugal affected by forest fires was selected as a study case. The Modispinaster model was used as the basis of the DSS, to simulate growth scenarios and interventions along the optional rotation period. Two clear-cut ages were considered: 25 and 40 years. The results obtained were the input data for an integer linear programming (ILP) model to obtain the plan that maximizes the volume of timber harvested in the study area, during the planning horizon. The ILP model has constraints bounding the area of clearings, and sustainability, operational and forestry restrictions. The computational results are a powerful tool for guidance in the decision-making of scheduling and forecasting the execution of interventions determining the set of stands that are exploited according to the different scenarios and the period in which the clear-cut is made throughout the planning horizon. Considering all constraints, the solution allows a balanced extraction of a total of 685 m³·ha⁻¹, over the 50-year horizon, as well as the representation of all age classes at the end of the planning period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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16 pages, 6260 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resistance, Recovery and Resilience of Two Co-Occurring Palaeotropical Pinus Species Differing in the Sizes of Their Distribution Areas

by Le T. Ho, Jana Hoppe and Frank M. Thomas

Forests 2021, 12(4), 511; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12040511 - 20 Apr 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2534

Abstract

Using a dendrochronological approach, we determined the resistance, recovery and resilience of the radial stem increment towards episodes of growth decline, and the accompanying variation of ¹³C discrimination against atmospheric CO₂ (Δ¹³C) in tree rings of two palaeotropical pine species. These species co-occur in the mountain ranges of south–central Vietnam (1500–1600 m a.s.l.), but differ largely in their areas of distribution (Pinus kesiya from northeast India to the Philippines; P. dalatensis only in south and central Vietnam and in some isolated populations in Laos). For P. dalatensis, a robust growth chronology covering the past 290 years could be set up for the first time in the study region. For P. kesiya, the 140-year chronology constructed was the longest that could be established to date in that region for this species. In the first 40 years of the trees’ lives, the stem diameter increment was significantly larger in P. kesiya, but levelled off and even decreased after 100 years, whereas P. dalatensis exhibited a continuous growth up to an age of almost 300 years. Tree-ring growth of P. kesiya was negatively related to temperature in the wet months and season of the current year and in October (humid transition period) of the preceding year and to precipitation in August (monsoon season), but positively to precipitation in December (dry season) of the current year. The P. dalatensis chronologies exhibited no significant correlation with temperature or precipitation. Negative correlations between BAI and Δ¹³C indicate a lack of growth impairment by drought in both species. Regression analyses revealed a lower resilience of P. dalatensis upon episodes of growth decline compared to P. kesiya, but, contrary to our hypothesis, mean values of the three sensitivity parameters did not differ significantly between these species. Nevertheless, the vigorous growth of P. kesiya, which does not fall behind that of P. dalatensis even at the margin of its distribution area under below-optimum edaphic conditions, is indicative of a relatively high plasticity of this species towards environmental factors compared to P. dalatensis, which, in tendency, is less resilient upon environmental stress even in the “core” region of its occurrence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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20 pages, 5127 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Modelling Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) Spatial Distribution and Productivity in Portugal: Tools for Forest Management

by Cristina Alegria, Natália Roque, Teresa Albuquerque, Paulo Fernandez and Maria Margarida Ribeiro

Forests 2021, 12(3), 368; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12030368 - 19 Mar 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2901

Abstract

Research Highlights: Modelling species’ distribution and productivity is key to support integrated landscape planning, species’ afforestation, and sustainable forest management. Background and Objectives: Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) forests in Portugal were lately affected by wildfires and measures to overcome this situation are needed. The aims of this study were: (1) to model species’ spatial distribution and productivity using a machine learning (ML) regression approach to produce current species’ distribution and productivity maps; (2) to model the species’ spatial productivity using a stochastic sequential simulation approach to produce the species’ current productivity map; (3) to produce the species’ potential distribution map, by using a ML classification approach to define species’ ecological envelope thresholds; and (4) to identify present and future key factors for the species’ afforestation and management. Materials and Methods: Spatial land cover/land use data, inventory, and environmental data (climate, topography, and soil) were used in a coupled ML regression and stochastic sequential simulation approaches to model species’ current and potential distributions and productivity. Results: Maritime pine spatial distribution modelling by the ML approach provided 69% fitting efficiency, while species productivity modelling achieved only 43%. The species’ potential area covered 60% of the country’s area, where 78% of the species’ forest inventory plots (1995) were found. The change in the Maritime pine stands’ age structure observed in the last decades is causing the species’ recovery by natural regeneration to be at risk. Conclusions: The maps produced allow for best site identification for species afforestation, wood production regulation support, landscape planning considering species’ diversity, and fire hazard mitigation. These maps were obtained by modelling using environmental covariates, such as climate attributes, so their projection in future climate change scenarios can be performed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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17 pages, 2934 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development of Crown Ratio and Height to Crown Base Models for Masson Pine in Southern China

by Yao Li, Wei Wang, Weisheng Zeng, Jianjun Wang and Jinghui Meng

Forests 2020, 11(11), 1216; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f11111216 - 19 Nov 2020

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2711

Abstract

Crown ratio (CR) and height to crown base (HCB) are important crown characteristics influencing the behavior of forest canopy fires. However, the labor-intensive and costly measurement of CR and HCB have hindered their wide application to forest fire management. Here, we use 301 sample trees collected in 11 provinces in China to produce predictive models of CR and HCB for Masson pine forests (Pinus massoniana Lamb.), which are vulnerable to forest canopy fires. We first identified the best basic model that used only diameter at breast height (DBH) and height (H) as independent variables to predict CR and HCB, respectively, from 11 of the most used potential candidate models. Second, we introduced other covariates into the best basic model of CR and HCB and developed the final CR and HCB predictive models after evaluating the model performance of different combinations of covariates. The results showed that the Richards form of the candidate models performed best in predicting CR and HCB. The final CR model included DBH, H, DBH^0.5 and height-to-diameter ratio (HDR), while the final HCB model was the best basic model (i.e., it did not contain any other covariates). We hope that our CR and HCB predictive models contribute to the forest crown fire management of Masson pine forests. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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Review

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16 pages, 1199 KiB

Open AccessReview

Natural Regeneration of Maritime Pine: A Review of the Influencing Factors and Proposals for Management

by Stéphanie Ribeiro, Adelaide Cerveira, Paula Soares and Teresa Fonseca

Forests 2022, 13(3), 386; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13030386 - 26 Feb 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3428

Abstract

The main objective of the present work was to review the current knowledge about the factors that influence the different phases of the natural regeneration of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) and propose scientifically based management schedules. The review focused on the natural regeneration of maritime pine within its most representative areas (Portugal, Spain, and France). First, a brief characterisation of the main phases of the natural regeneration of maritime pine is described. Next, information on the factors affecting the natural regeneration of the species is provided, highlighting its positive and negative effects. Finally, management proposals are presented to promote the natural regeneration of maritime pine species. Numerous factors influencing the natural regeneration of maritime pine were identified. Fires and climatic factors can intervene in all three regeneration phases (seeding, germination, and seedling survival and development). The natural regeneration failure of maritime pine species can be aggravated in drier scenarios. Forest management plays an important role as it can promote the natural regeneration of the species. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modelling and Managing the Dynamics of Pine Forests)

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