North American tree migration paced by climate in the West, lagging in the East

Tree fecundity and recruitment have not yet been quantified at scales needed to anticipate biogeographic shifts in response to climate change. By separating their responses, this study shows coherence across species and communities, offering the strongest support to date that migration is in progress with regional limitations on rates. The southeastern continent emerges as a fecundity hotspot, but it is situated south of population centers where high seed production could contribute to poleward population spread. By contrast, seedling success is highest in the West and North, serving to partially offset limited seed production near poleward frontiers. The evidence of fecundity and recruitment control on tree migration can inform conservation planning for the expected long-term disequilibrium between climate and forest distribution.

Geoecological parameters indicate discrepancies between potential and actual forest area in the forest-steppe of Central Mongolia

Background Forest distribution in the forest-steppe of Mongolia depends on relief, permafrost, and climate, and is highly sensitive to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. Forest fires and logging decreased the forest area in the forest-steppe of Mongolia. The intention of this study was to identify the geoecological parameters that control forest distribution and living-tree biomass in this semi-arid environment. Based on these parameters, we aimed to delineate the area that forest might potentially occupy and to analyse the spatial patterns of actual and potential tree biomass. Methods We used a combination of various geographic methods in conjunction with statistical analyses to identify the key parameters controlling forest distribution. In several field campaigns, we mapped tree biomass and ecological parameters in a study area within the Tarvagatai Nuruu National Park (central Mongolia). Forest areas, topographic parameters and vegetation indices were obtained from remote sensing data. Significant correlations between forest distribution and living-tree biomass on one hand, and topographic parameters, climate data, and environmental conditions on the other hand, were used to delineate the area of potential forest distribution and to estimate total living-tree biomass for this area. Results Presence of forest on slopes was controlled by the factors elevation, aspect, slope, mean annual precipitation, and mean growing-season temperature. Combining these factors allowed for estimation of potential forest area but was less suitable for tree-biomass delineation. No significant differences in mean living-tree biomass existed between sites exposed to different local conditions with respect to forest fire, exploitation, and soil properties. Tree biomass was reduced at forest edges (defined as 30 m wide belt), in small fragmented and in large forest stands. Tree biomass in the study area was 20 × 109 g (1,086 km2 forest area), whereas the potential tree biomass would reach up to 65 × 109 g (> 3168 km2). Conclusions The obtained projection suggests that the potential forest area and tree biomass under the present climatic and geoecological conditions is three times that of the present forest area and biomass. Forest fires, which mostly affected large forest stands in the upper mountains, destroyed 43% of the forest area and 45% of the living-tree biomass in the study area over the period 1986–2017.

Effects of Randomized Management on the Forest Distribution Patterns of Larix kaempferi Plantation in Xiaolongshan, Gansu Province, China

Patterns of tree distribution are an important attribute of forest structure and directly affect the health and stability of forest ecosystems. This paper studied the effects of forest management on the forest distribution pattern of Larix kaempferi plantations with an aim to improve the quality of the spatial structure of plantations by providing scientific grounds for near-nature distribution pattern adjustment. We set up 15 long-term positioning and monitoring plots of 20 m × 20 m of L. kaempferi plantations in Xiaolongshan, Gansu Province, China, based on the Clark and Evans index, and applied the structure analysis method of the neighboring tree relationship to determine the standard angle of the uniform angle index of regularly distributed plantation forests. The changes in forest distribution patterns were compared before and after randomized management (R1 (dumbbell-shaped random unit), R2 (torch-shaped random unit) and R1:R2 = 1:2 models) and underlayer tending and unmanaged control (CK). The results showed that (1) Under different management modes, the distribution patterns obtained by the Clark and Evans index and the mean values of the uniform angle index were entirely the same; all stand patterns were evenly distributed. (2) Regardless of randomized management or underlayer tending, the number of trees in the even distribution was the largest, accounting for more than 40%. (3) The mean values of the uniform angle index of most stands increased obviously after randomized management, among which the R1 and R2 stands showed an upward trend, while the R1:R2 = 1:2 stands showed a slight decrease. However, the mean values of the uniform angle index of the stands with underlayer management showed a decreasing trend. (4) The proportion of random trees in most stands increased significantly after randomized management, increasing by 1%~19% compared with that before adjustment, while the proportion of random trees in the underlayer tending treatment decreased by 2%~10%. Our results suggest that (1) The method based on the modified uniform angle index standard angle could effectively improve the accuracy of the distribution pattern of individual trees in plantation forests and further improve the accuracy of the overall stand pattern quantitatively. (2) Randomized management significantly increased the proportion of random trees in the stands, which accelerated the evolution of the forest distribution pattern of the L. kaempferi plantation to a random distribution.

PROBLEMS OF LEGAL REGULATION OF MEASURES FOR THE USE AND PROTECTION OF FORESTS

In this article, the authors investigate the problems of legal regulation of forest management and forest protection. According to the authors, the nature of forest management problems and the prevalence, type and severity of committed forest violations depend on the per capita forest distribution in Russia. The actual problem of the use and protection of forests in Russia today is the depleting nature of forest use in the regions of Russia provided with forests. The authors also refer to the problems of forest use as violations of the rights of citizens to stay in forests, to pick mushrooms, berries, nuts and other forest food resources. The authors propose to pay special attention to the prevention of risks of causing economic damage to citizens and organizations when applying measures to protect forests.

Effect of Soil Diversity on Forest Plant Species Abundance: A Case Study from Central-European Highlands

Plant distribution is most closely associated with the abiotic environment. The abiotic environment affects plant species’ abundancy unevenly. The asymmetry is further deviated by human interventions. Contrarily, soil properties preserve environmental influences from the anthropogenic perturbations. The study examined the supra-regional similarities of soil effects on plant species’ abundance in temperate forests to determine: (i) spatial relationships between soil property and forest-plant diversity among geographical regions; (ii) whether the spatial dependencies among compared forest-diversity components are influenced by natural forest representation. The spatial dependence was assessed using geographically weighted regression (GWR) of soil properties and plant species abundance from forest stands among 91 biogeographical regions in the Czech Republic (Central Europe). Regional soil properties and plant species abundance were acquired from 7550 national forest inventory plots positioned in a 4 × 4 km grid. The effect of natural forests was assessed using linear regression between the sums of squared GWR residues and protected forest distribution in the regions. Total diversity of forest plants is significantly dependent on soil-group representation. The soil-group effect is more significant than that of bedrock bodies, most of all in biogeographical regions with protected forest representation >50%. Effects of soil chemical properties were not affected by protected forest distribution. Spatial dependency analysis separated biogeographical regions of optimal forest plant diversity from those where inadequate forest-ecosystem diversity should be increased alongside soil diversity.

The Effects of Terrain Factors and Cultural Landscapes on Plateau Forest Distribution in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China

The Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is a typical Tibetan plateau area, and its ecological environment is very fragile. It is necessary to explore the terrain and cultural factors for the protection of the local ecological environment. We mainly investigated and quantified the effect of terrain factors and two typical plateau cultural landscapes (temples and villages) on the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of four types of forest landscape in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture from 1990 to 2015 using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) technology. The results showed that, under the influence of terrain factors, forest landscapes were only distributed in places with an altitude of 5055 meters above sea level (masl) to 6300 masl, with a slope of 0–27°, and the largest distribution area was shrubbery. The area of the forest decreased with the increase in altitude, and it first rose and then decreased with the increase in slope. Regression analysis results showed that the influence of altitude on closed forest land and open forest land followed a polynomial function, while that on shrubbery followed a logarithmic function, and the impact of slope on the three forest landscapes followed the amplitude version of a Gaussian peak function. Considering cultural factors, temples and villages did not determine the forest distribution in the same way as natural factors do, but they motivated the amount of forest over spatiotemporal scales. Temples had a greater influence on forest protection than villages, and this positive impact was stronger within 6 km. The area of forest distributed around the temple accounts for more than 45.67% of the total forest area, and this area has not changed significantly in 25 years. In summary, altitude and slope affect the natural distribution of the forest, and temples affect the scale of forest distribution. These results reveal the impact of terrain factors and cultural landscapes on forest distribution and could motivate an even more effective management for sustainable forest development.

Pre-Columbian palaeodemography in the Atlantic Forest (Brazil): evaluating the role and influence of extreme hydroclimatic oscillations

<p>The Atlantic Forest is a major biogeographic zone of Brazil, encompassing biodiverse evergreen, semi‐deciduous, and <em>Araucaria </em>forests. It is presently home to millions of people, and, consequently, has experienced high levels of defaunation/deforestation through fragmentation and habitat loss in recent years. A growing archaeological and palaeoecological consensus indicates growing anthropic influences on forest distribution during the pre-Columbian period, hand-in-hand with land use intensification and increasing social complexity over time. </p><p>Against this backdrop, this paper expands upon recent palaeodemographic work in South America to evaluate the role of long-term (centennial-scale) hydroclimatic oscillations (and the antiphasing thereof) in the Atlantic Forest domain as a potential "push factor" engendering human-driven forest expansion. It will synthesise archaeological, palaeoclimatological, and palaeoecological records, evaluate data quality, and identify areas for expansive future research. </p>

Forest Changes by Precipitation Zones in Northern China after the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program in China

China launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program (TNSFP) in 1978 in northern China to combat desertification and dust storms, but it is still controversial in ecologically fragile arid and semi-arid areas, which is partly due to the uncertainties of monitoring of the spatial-temporal changes of forest distribution. In this study, we aim to provide an overall retrospect of the forest changes (i.e., forest gain and forest loss) in northern China during 2007–2017, and to analyze the forest changes in different precipitation zones. We first generated annual forest maps at 30 m spatial resolution during 2007–2017 in northern China through integrating Landsat and PALSAR/PALSAR-2 data. We found the PALSAR/Landsat-based forest maps outperform other four existing products (i.e., JAXA F/NF, FROM-GLC, GlobeLand30, and NLCD-China) from either PALSAR or Landsat data, with a higher overall accuracy 96% ± 1%. The spatial-temporal analyses of forests showed a substantial forest expansion from 316,898 ± 34,537 km2 in 2007 to 384,568 ± 35,855 km2 in 2017 in the central and eastern areas. We found a higher forest loss rate (i.e., 35%) in the precipitation zones with the annual mean precipitation less than 400 mm (i.e., the arid and semi-arid areas) comparing to that (i.e., 25%) in the zones with more than 400 mm (i.e., the humid areas), which suggests the lower surviving rate in the drylands. This study provides satellite-based evidence for the forest changes in different precipitation zones, and suggests that the likely impacts of precipitation on afforestation effectiveness should be considered in future implementation of ecological restoration projects like TNSFP.

Sebaran Hutan Mangrove di Wilayah Pesisir Tobelo menggunakan Sistem Informasi Geografis

The aim of this research is to make a map of mangrove forest distribution and to know the dynamics of mangrove forest distribution in the coastal area of Tobelo, North Halmahera Regency. The method used is descriptive quantitative and data analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with ArGis 10.6 software. The research data were processed from the base map and Landsat 7 imagery data for the period 2000-2020. The result of the analysis shows that there is a change in the distribution of the mangrove coastal mangrove Tobelo within 20 years. In the Landsat 7 level 1 image data, from 2000-2015 the mangrove forest experienced a lot of reduction, while in 2020 the mangrove forest on the Tobelo coast experienced an increase compared to previous years.