Forest Ecology and Management最新文献

{"title":"Recovery of south-eastern Australian temperate forest carbon is influenced by post-fire drought as well as fire severity","authors":"Liubov Volkova ,&nbsp;Keryn I. Paul ,&nbsp;Stephen H. Roxburgh ,&nbsp;Christopher J. Weston","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122666","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122666","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>During 2017–2019 south-eastern Australia experienced intense drought that threatened and damaged ecosystems and helped enable the Black Summer wildfires of 2019–2020. These wildfires burnt through about 7 M ha of mainly temperate <em>Eucalyptus</em> forests, releasing the equivalent of Australia's total net annual greenhouse gas emissions. For the state of Victoria, these fires burnt through about 1 M ha of highly productive forests, where 50 % of the area was burnt with high to extreme wildfire severity. This study reports the recovery of <em>Eucalyptus sieberi</em> dominated forests three years after the Black Summer wildfires, and five years after prescribed burn applied in May 2018, during the drought. Wildfire affected sites were burnt with high and low-to-moderate severity, while previously prescribed burnt sites were burnt at low-to-moderate severity and were not reburnt in the 2020 wildfires. For wildfire affected sites, 30 % of small diameter trees (10–20 cm) continued to die three years after fires, irrespective of fire severity. Three years after wildfire, live tree carbon reached 92 % of pre-fire level for low-to-moderate severity sites and 76 % for high severity sites, indicating longer recovery with more severe wildfire. For prescribed burnt sites, tree mortality significantly increased two years after the burn and the number of live trees thereafter remained stable to five years post fire. This trend was reflected in the non-recovery of live tree carbon reaching only 95 % of pre-fire level five years after the burn. Recruitment of new <em>Eucalyptus</em> seedlings was observed in sites burnt in wildfire regardless of fire severity (900 ± 316 trees ha⁻¹), but not in prescribed burnt sites. This was possibly driven by the differences in rainfall after fires, rather than fire type. For other forest carbon pools such as surface litter and CWD, recovery to pre-fire levels was observed within six months after fires. Moreover, for low-to-moderate severity burnt sites litter loads had doubled pre-fire mass three years after fire and continued to increase five years post fire.</div><div>Results from this study suggest that both fire severity and post-fire weather conditions play an important role in determining the rate of forest aboveground carbon recovery. Our findings indicate that as fire severity increases, the time required for recovery of live tree carbon to pre-fire level is longer. Even low impact prescribed burns during prolonged drought can lead to ongoing mortality that reduces the rate of carbon recovery. These observations indicate that increases in fire occurrence and severity associated with climate change can reduce the carbon carrying capacity of these highly productive temperate forests. The implication of this work is that the presumed recovery of aboveground carbon in forests following fires may be over-estimated or might not occur at all.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122666"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143682089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"To log or not to log: Salvaging bark-beetle affected spruce stands results in direct losses of leaf litter C, stable topsoil C stocks, and shifts in enzyme stoichiometry","authors":"Martin Valtera ,&nbsp;Ladislav Holík ,&nbsp;Jiří Volánek ,&nbsp;Boris Rewald","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122654","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122654","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Disturbances by bark beetles and subsequent salvage logging affect forest carbon (C) stocks. Although deadwood retention is recognised to maintain soil organic C (SOC), the effects of standing deadwood vs. salvage logging on soil properties are poorly understood. This study examines C stocks and soil biochemistry at 21 low-elevation Norway spruce forests 1–3 years after disturbance in the Czech Republic. One third of the stands served as undisturbed control, one third remained dead standing, and one third was salvage logged. The litter C stocks of salvaged plots were immediately reduced to 2.8 ± 0.8 Mg C ha⁻¹, whereas the litter and topsoil C stocks of dead standing plots decrease from 26.8 and 43.8 Mg C ha⁻¹ to 4.4 and 24.9 Mg C ha⁻¹, respectively, over the first three years. Consequently, the topsoil C stocks were ∼24 % lower at the dead than those of the salvaged plots. NH₄-N contents increased two- to three-fold following dieback but decreased to the level of control within the third year. Extracellular enzyme stoichiometry indicated lower organic topsoil C and P microbial limitations at salvaged plots. Our results highlight the rapid dynamics of SOC pools following spruce forest dieback and a marked redistribution of SOC towards topsoil layers when salvaged. Thus, the incorporation of harvest residues and/or changes in soil microbial processes prevented a significant decrease in SOC stocks due to logging. Although deadwood retained higher ecosystem C stocks at the unlogged plots, detailed data on SOC dynamics are required for managing forests to maximise C stocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122654"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tree species identity modifies the efficiency of habitat tree retention for conserving epiphytes in temperate mountain forests","authors":"Dina Emrich ,&nbsp;Lena Gustafsson ,&nbsp;Stefan Kaufmann ,&nbsp;Markus Hauck","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122616","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122616","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Forest ecosystems play an outstanding role in supporting diverse bryophyte and lichen communities. However, intensive forest management has led to a considerable decline of epiphyte communities, which are sensitive to the simplification of forest stands and the interruption of stand continuity. Retention forestry, which originally aimed to conserve important structural elements for biodiversity after clearcut, has more recently also been incorporated into continuous-cover forestry in temperate European forests. As both management systems differ from each other, it is difficult to transfer findings to the efficiency of retention measures for biodiversity conservation from clearcut to continuous-cover management systems. Therefore, we studied how habitat trees retained in continuous-cover forestry in temperate mountain forests of Germany dominated by <em>Fagus sylvatica</em>, <em>Picea abies</em>, and <em>Abies alba</em> would benefit epiphytic bryophytes and lichens. We analysed the epiphyte vegetation on 1254 trees in 132 forest stands. We compared large-sized habitat retention trees (HT) and smaller-sized average trees (AT). We detected a significantly higher species richness on HT, which was more strongly driven by lichens than by bryophytes. Even stronger increases in Simpson and Shannon diversity suggested that these increases in richness were due to increased population sizes of several species and not due to the addition of few individuals of few species. Strong variability in the response of epiphyte diversity occurred between tree species, with bryophytes being particularly favored by <em>F. sylvatica</em> and lichens by <em>A. alba</em>. Retention of HT is thus a suitable tool to conserve epiphytes in Central European temperate forests, even after blind selection of HT without consideration of the epiphyte vegetation before tree selection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122616"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An integrated approach combining bi-temporal airborne laser scanning and X-ray microdensitometry in assessing wood properties","authors":"Maryam Poorazimy ,&nbsp;Ghasem Ronoud ,&nbsp;Tuomas Yrttimaa ,&nbsp;Juha Hyyppä ,&nbsp;Ninni Saarinen ,&nbsp;Ville Kankare ,&nbsp;Mikko Vastaranta","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122497","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122497","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Information on wood properties across trees and stands is needed to support silviculture and wood procurement. Wood properties of standing trees are usually measured by destructive sampling limiting the number of observations that can be collected across a range of forest structural and environmental conditions. In contrast, airborne laser scanning (ALS), with its capability to characterize tree crowns and their increment over time, could provide a non-destructive approach for assessing wood properties. This study aimed at relating ALS-derived mean annual increments in tree height and crown dimensions between 2009 (T1) and 2023 (T2) to X-ray microdensitometry-measured mean ring width (RW_mean-tree) and basal-area weighted mean wood density (WD_mean-tree) formed during the same period. The experimental design comprised 257 Scots pines (<em>Pinus sylvestris</em> L.) and 142 Norway spruces (<em>Picea abies</em> (L.) Karst.) across 59 sample plots representing varying boreal forest conditions. As per our investigations, the mean annual increment in tree height (ΔH_{mean_tree}) represented the strongest correlations with RW_{mean_tree} for both tree species (<em>r</em> = 0.43–0.44) and a weak but statistically significant correlation with WD_{mean_tree} for Norway spruces only (<em>r</em> = −0.17). When aggregating individual tree observations for plot-level, ΔH_{mean_plot} exhibited moderate correlations (<em>r</em> = 0.47–0.48) with RW_{mean_plot} for both species. WD_{mean_plot} of Scots pines showed a correlation of 0.36 with the averaged mean annual increments of crown surface area. However, none of the metrics were significant for WD_{mean_plot} of Norway spruces. By utilizing the linear-mixed effect model 40–41 % of the variations in RW_{mean_tree} of Scots pines and Norway spruces could be explained when accounting for the variability between sample plots. Based on our study, it appears that some of the variation in wood properties, particularly in ring width, can be captured using bi-temporal ALS measurements. However, assessing wood properties over large areas remains challenging and requires further research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122497"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Numerical response of Trypodendron lineatum to hemlock looper defoliation in boreal balsam fir forest","authors":"Jean-Michel Béland ,&nbsp;Éric Bauce ,&nbsp;Conrad Cloutier ,&nbsp;Richard Berthiaume ,&nbsp;Christian Hébert","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122592","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122592","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The hemlock looper is one of the most damaging insect defoliators in Canada, often killing trees after only one or two years of heavy defoliation. A study on the short-term succession of saproxylic beetles after a hemlock looper outbreak highlighted the dominance of the striped ambrosia beetle in boreal balsam fir stands heavily defoliated by this looper. In the present study, we measured the numerical response of this ambrosia beetle to balsam fir defoliation. Our objectives were to determine 1) the defoliation threshold triggering massive colonization of balsam fir trees by the striped ambrosia beetle, using emergence traps placed around tree trunks and 2) if the upcoming colonization could be forecasted with multidirectional flight-interception traps or trunk-window traps. Results showed that colonization only began when balsam fir trees reached 95 % defoliation. Trees reaching this threshold had 54 % probability of being massively colonized as indicated by the emergence of hundreds of beetles from single trees over the summer. The probability of massive colonization reached 61 % when defoliation was total. Both, the trunk-window trap and the multidirectional flight-interception trap, proved reliable in predicting striped ambrosia beetle attacks. Either trap captured this beetle in all plots where at least one tree had been massively colonized. These traps could thus be helpful for monitoring populations of the striped ambrosia beetle, predicting tree colonization and planning salvage logging plans.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122592"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of herbivory on shrub performance in a managed forest","authors":"Sarah E. Meronk,&nbsp;Ryan A. Long","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122659","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122659","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large herbivores have an outsized influence on ecosystem structure and function but are declining globally. In managed forests, shrub planting is commonly used to improve habitat for large herbivores, but success of this approach has been mixed. Despite the time and cost involved, planting efforts often fail to establish viable shrub communities, underscoring the need to understand factors that govern interactions between large herbivores and planted shrubs. We evaluated whether and to what degree herbivory during winter limited performance of planted shrubs in a forest managed as winter range for North American elk (<em>Cervus canadensis</em>). Using long-term herbivory exclosures (<em>n</em> = 5) and a before-after-control-impact design, we assessed (1) the nature and magnitude of shrub responses to winter herbivory during the subsequent growing season, and (2) relationships between shrub size (i.e., height, volume) and ability to replace biomass lost to herbivores during winter. Consistent with herbivore optimization theory, shrubs responded positively to winter browsing by producing longer shoots and concomitantly more biomass during the subsequent growing season. However, this response was contingent on shrubs surpassing mean minimum size thresholds prior to being exposed to herbivory. These results indicate that identifying such thresholds and allowing planted shrubs to reach them before being exposed to herbivory could help improve the effectiveness of habitat management for large herbivores. For example, the use of low-cost fencing to temporarily protect young shrubs from browsing, or the planting of older, larger shrubs could lead to more consistent success in establishing viable shrub communities in managed forests.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122659"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Negative effects of forest edges and canopy opening on moth communities","authors":"Pieter Vangansbeke ,&nbsp;Pallieter De Smedt ,&nbsp;Cyr Mestdagh ,&nbsp;Sanne Govaert ,&nbsp;Camille Meeussen ,&nbsp;Thomas Vanneste ,&nbsp;Dries Bonte ,&nbsp;Kim Calders ,&nbsp;Jonathan Lenoir ,&nbsp;Fabien Spicher ,&nbsp;Quentin Ponette ,&nbsp;Haben Blondeel ,&nbsp;Eva DeCock ,&nbsp;Karen De Pauw ,&nbsp;Wim De Schuyter ,&nbsp;Els Dhiedt ,&nbsp;Michael P. Perring ,&nbsp;Pieter Sanczuk ,&nbsp;Sanne Van Den Berge ,&nbsp;Pieter De Frenne","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122661","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122661","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Forest loss and fragmentation are major threats to biodiversity and associated ecosystem services worldwide. Forest fragmentation leads to the creation of forest edges, which experience contrasting environmental conditions compared to forest interiors, inducing a strong change in biological communities. In addition, forest management interventions, such as thinning influence canopy opening, microclimate and strongly alter the structural environment of vegetation. Moths are a species-rich and functionally important taxonomic group because of their role in plant pollination and as bulk food for other species. Here we studied the effects of canopy structure and edge-to-interior gradients on macro-moth communities using light traps in Belgium and northern France. We found that forest edges had lower abundance of moths (a modeled reduction of 46 %) and lower species richness (-29 %) than forest interiors. Open stands had an overall lower abundance of moths compared to more closed stands (-17 %). Moreover, the interaction between forest structure and edge effect was significant, indicating stronger reductions of moth abundance towards the edge in open forest (-57 % vs −37 % in dense forest). Both local environmental variables and landscape variables explained the observed patterns, e.g., nighttime temperature of the plot and forest cover in the surrounding landscape both had a positive effect on moth activity density and species richness. We found limited evidence that moth species traits explained the observed edge-to-interior disparities, although species with larvae feeding on shrubs and trees tended to be more associated with forest cores than grass and herb feeders. Our results indicate the importance of functional forest interior habitat and relatively undisturbed forests with a high structural complexity for moth conservation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122661"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Productivity of mixed plantations of ash and larch in northeastern China – a model-based analysis","authors":"Lihu Dong ,&nbsp;Qing Wang ,&nbsp;Xingji Jin ,&nbsp;Timo Pukkala ,&nbsp;Fengri Li","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122609","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122609","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mixed forests are favored in forest management because of their higher biodiversity and resilience than pure stands. The productivity of a mixed stand may be better than the average of monospecific stands of those species that form the mixed stand. In northeastern China, most plantation forests are monocultures, but mixed plantations are also increasingly established. Several experiments of planted mixtures of Changbai larch (<em>Larix olgensis</em>) and Manchurian ash (<em>Fraxinus mandshurica</em>) have been established in the Heilongjiang province of northeastern China. This study analyzed the growth and mortality of the trees in these experiments at ages 15–30 years. Both distance-dependent and distance-independent tree-level models for diameter increment and mortality were developed. The analyses showed that competition indices calculated from tree heights performed better than indices based on trunk diameters, indicating the importance of competition for light. The models suggested that ash benefits from a larch admixture, but larch does not benefit from the presence of ashes. Simulations conducted using the models showed that, at stand ages of 15–30 years, ash stands were more productive than mixed or pure larch stands. Because the two species performed differently in different experiments and plots, no overall conclusions could be drawn about the overyielding or under-yielding of mixed stands. In some sites, the mixture may be more productive than the average of pure stands, but this conclusion cannot be generalized.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122609"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tree vitality predicts plant-pathogenic fungal communities in beech forest canopies","authors":"Yiwei Duan ,&nbsp;Andjin Siegenthaler ,&nbsp;Andrew K. Skidmore ,&nbsp;Haidi Abdullah ,&nbsp;Anthony A. Chariton ,&nbsp;Ivo Laros ,&nbsp;Mélody Rousseau ,&nbsp;G. Arjen de Groot","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122588","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122588","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Forest canopies host diverse fungal communities that are crucial for tree vitality—defined as the physiological and structural traits influencing growth and resilience—and, consequently, for ecosystem functions. The canopy mycobiome has been shown to be closely associated with its tree hosts, especially in the case of pathogenic taxa. To better understand and predict how the canopy mycobiome will respond to changing environmental conditions, we used tree vitality-related variables to predict patterns in the beech canopy fungal plant-pathogens in two temperate forests— Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany and the Veluwe forest area, the Netherlands. Canopy water content, chlorophyll content, and crown diameter emerged as robust predictors of the canopy fungal plant-pathogen communities. We showed that these tree vitality-related variables predicted the unweighted relative abundance of plant-pathogenic fungi in the total fungal communities and the diversity of the fungal plant pathogen subgroup, but not the weighted relative abundance of plant-pathogenic fungi in the total fungal communities. Our model offers a powerful tool for monitoring this previously neglected biome in temperate beech forests in Europe.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122588"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Converting larch monocultures to mixed-species forests: Ten-year impacts of canopy manipulation on understory regeneration","authors":"Yuan Gao ,&nbsp;Xiaoyu Wang ,&nbsp;Qiang Liu ,&nbsp;Jinxin Zhang ,&nbsp;Xiaoyi Han ,&nbsp;Sheng-I Yang ,&nbsp;Deliang Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122611","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.122611","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Larch (<em>Larix</em> spp.) monoculture plantations are widely used for timber production but often lead to reduced biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Therefore, exploring strategies to transition these plantations into mixed-species forests while maintaining forest ecosystem sustainability is crucial. This study examines the ten-year impacts (2015–2024) of small-scale, low-intensity canopy manipulation on the growth performance of planted Manchurian walnut (<em>Juglans mandshurica</em> Maxim.) and Korean spruce (<em>Picea koraiensis</em> Nakai). Four canopy treatments were applied: control (no treatment), light thinning (25 % basal area reduction), smaller gaps (45 m²), and larger gaps (160 m²). We also compared artificial planting with existing natural regeneration under these treatments. Results indicated that both species primarily survived in gaps, with nearly all individuals in control and thinning treatments dying after 10 years. For Manchurian walnut, stems exhibited significantly greater height and root collar diameter (RCD) at gap centers, particularly in larger gaps, where height was 190 % greater than at gap edges. For Korean spruce, while RCD did not differ significantly between gap sizes, it was 16–21 % higher at gap centers compared to edges. Ecophysiological traits (i.e., specific leaf area, chlorophyll content, and non-structural carbohydrate concentration) were largely unaffected by gap size or within-gap position. Furthermore, the proportion of dominant species was higher in artificial planting plots (69 %) than in natural regeneration plots (57 %), while natural regeneration plots supported more common species (10 vs. 7). These findings highlight the efficacy of combining gap creation with artificial planting as a silvicultural approach to gradually transitioning larch monocultures into mixed-species forests.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"585 ","pages":"Article 122611"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143637450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}