Daniel R. MacNulty, Elaine M. Brice, Nicholas J. Bergeron, Eric J. Larsen
{"title":"Overstating trophic cascade strength following large carnivore restoration in Yellowstone: A comment on Painter et al. (2025)","authors":"Daniel R. MacNulty, Elaine M. Brice, Nicholas J. Bergeron, Eric J. Larsen","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123448","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123448","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Painter et al. (2025) claim that large-carnivore recovery in Yellowstone National Park has produced a strong trophic cascade compared to other systems, citing a 152-fold increase in aspen sapling density and widespread recruitment of new trees. We show that these conclusions substantially overstate the cascade’s strength because of key methodological and interpretive flaws. First, Painter et al. miscalculated the baseline density in their dataset, inflating the reported log response ratio from a true 17.5-fold increase to 152-fold. Second, they analyzed repeated measurements of the same stands as if they were independent samples, overstating standardized effect sizes by 30–40 %. Third, because sapling densities are highly zero-inflated and right-skewed, mean-based metrics (log response ratios and standardized differences) are disproportionately influenced by a small minority of plots, while most plots showed little or no change. Fourth, Painter et al. conflated stand-level occurrence with magnitude, treating the presence of one or a few tall stems (“43 % of stands contained small trees”) as evidence of widespread recruitment. Finally, their assumptions that stems ≥ 2 m have escaped browsing and that reduced browsing alone drives height growth are contradicted by long-term data showing substantial browsing through 2–2.5 m and strong height–browsing feedbacks. Taken together, these shortcomings exaggerate the magnitude and pace of aspen recovery. The evidence supports the occurrence of a trophic cascade in Yellowstone, but not the magnitude of strength claimed. Accurate assessment of trophic cascade strength in Yellowstone is vital to ensure that this iconic system reliably informs ecological understanding and restoration practice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123448"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146188566","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":"Comments on “Clear-cuts and warming summers caused forest bird populations to decline in a southern boreal area” by Virkkala et al","authors":"Jari Vauhkonen","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123478","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123478","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A reanalysis of Virkkala et al. (2023) suggests that their conclusion of identifying cumulative clearcutting as the primary cause of the bird population decline is misleading. The significance of clearcutting stems from its monotonic increase over time due to being a cumulative sum, which cannot be distinguished statistically from a spurious correlation in a single-site time series. Adding the observation year as an additional explanatory variable to the original model made the significance disappear and changed the sign of the coefficient, indicating confounding with time. A comparison with alternative time-aware modeling approaches also reduced support for clearcutting as a primary driver. As in the original study, seasonal temperature values were significant explanatory variables of changes in bird densities, supporting climate-linked trends. Including temporal structure (autoregression and moving average terms) and species interactions could improve the model’s ability to describe the bird population drivers. However, any such inference is inherently limited by the data. The lack of replication, potential observer bias over the 30-year period, spatial inconsistencies, and unresolved issues in the clearcut dataset raise concerns. Fundamentally, drawing such strong conclusions from a single, unreplicated time series is scientifically questionable and warrants criticism.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123478"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146188772","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}
Lorenzo Orzan , Antonio Tomao , Gabriele Antoniella , Gianmaria Bonari , Valentino Casolo , Tommaso Chiti , Paolo Cingano , Alessandro Foscari , Guido Incerti , Speranza Claudia Panico , Natalie Piazza , Giacomo Trotta , Giorgio Alberti
{"title":"As forests reclaim the land: Latitudinal variations in carbon-biodiversity trade-offs under natural forest expansion in Italy","authors":"Lorenzo Orzan , Antonio Tomao , Gabriele Antoniella , Gianmaria Bonari , Valentino Casolo , Tommaso Chiti , Paolo Cingano , Alessandro Foscari , Guido Incerti , Speranza Claudia Panico , Natalie Piazza , Giacomo Trotta , Giorgio Alberti","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123527","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123527","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Spontaneous forest expansion following land abandonment can play a key role in achieving European targets for climate-change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. Understanding how biodiversity relates to carbon (C) stocks across successional stages can inform management strategies that simultaneously promote species diversity and C sequestration, thereby optimizing land use for ecosystem multifunctionality. We analysed 16 chronosequences spanning five successional stages, from meadows and pastures to mature forests (up to ∼75 years since abandonment), organized into four clusters along a latitudinal gradient in Italy, encompassing the Alpine, Continental, and Mediterranean biogeographical regions. We quantified vegetation, deadwood, and soil C pools and calculated diversity indices for herbaceous plant species. Linear and generalized linear mixed models were used to assess successional stage and site effects on C stocks and diversity indices. Total ecosystem C increased along succession, driven primarily by tree biomass, reaching 195–289 Mg C ha<sup>−1</sup> in late-successional forests. Soil C showed no clear successional trend, with weak or site-specific patterns. Herbaceous species richness and diversity peaked in managed meadows/pastures and early encroachment stages but declined towards closed-canopy forests in three sites. By contrast, a U-shaped pattern emerged in the southernmost site. Consequently, the C–diversity relationship was predominantly negative, except for the non-linear response observed in the Mediterranean site. Overall, spontaneous reforestation promotes C storage but often reduce herbaceous plant diversity, revealing potential trade-offs between climate mitigation and plant diversity. However, under favourable environmental conditions, partial recovery of plant diversity in late-successional forests may occur, suggesting for win-win management policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123527"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145974877","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}
Saba J. Saberi , Phillip J. van Mantgem , Micah C. Wright , Christopher Y.S. Wong , Andrew M. Latimer , Derek J.N. Young
{"title":"Quantifying post-fire live tree presence and spatial variation using Sentinel-2 time series","authors":"Saba J. Saberi , Phillip J. van Mantgem , Micah C. Wright , Christopher Y.S. Wong , Andrew M. Latimer , Derek J.N. Young","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123461","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123461","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Accurate mapping of post-fire surviving trees is important for tracking forest recovery and prioritizing land management decisions. Satellite-based remote sensing is an effective method to assess post-fire forest conditions. Traditionally, differenced satellite-derived burn severity indices are computed by differencing one year pre- and post-fire spectral reflectance values. Differenced burn severity indices are useful for quantifying and mapping the magnitude of ecological change, but their application to detecting and mapping post-fire live trees may not be as appropriate, particularly for delayed tree mortality. Delayed tree mortality (“delayed mortality”) is a phenomenon where trees that initially survive fire then die over an extended period (between one and five years), and it can be challenging to measure and predict. In this study, we demonstrate the potential of mapping delayed mortality using readily available remotely sensed imagery alone. We used random forest models to detect post-fire live trees using 10-m resolution Sentinel-2 data at one-, three-, and five-years post-fire for four fires in the southern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Using imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP; 60-cm resolution), we manually classified live tree presence in 6000 Sentinel-2 pixels (500 pixels for each fire-year combination) to calibrate and validate models. Sentinel-2 based model accuracies ranged from 65 % to 86 % with F-scores ranging from 0.52 to 0.86, and their predictions of live pixel area were on average 44 % lower than inferred from more traditional indices such as relative differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR). This work represents a promising first step in using freely available post-fire spectral reflectance imagery to detect live trees over an extended period to support post-fire management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123461"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145974870","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}
Luke E. Painter, Robert L. Beschta, William J. Ripple
{"title":"An ecologically significant trophic cascade in Yellowstone: Response to MacNulty, et al. (2026)","authors":"Luke E. Painter, Robert L. Beschta, William J. Ripple","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123449","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123449","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a recent paper (<span><span>Painter et al., 2025</span></span>) we reported results from northern Yellowstone National Park, where quaking aspen recruitment was suppressed by intensive Rocky Mountain elk herbivory during the 20th century. Restoration of large carnivores, including gray wolf reintroduction in 1995–96, resulted in sustained reduction of elk density and elk browsing, benefitting aspen. We reported changes in aspen recruitment between our initial random sampling of aspen in 1997–98 and subsequent sampling in 2012 and 2020–21. Density of young aspen (<u>></u>2 m tall) increased and new young trees (<u>></u>5 cm dbh) were documented for the first time since the 1940s. About 30 % of stands had many new saplings, while 38 % continued to be suppressed with few or no saplings, and the remaining 32 % had patches of saplings. In their comment, <span><span>MacNulty et al. (2026)</span></span> identified an error in our calculation of log ratio effect strength. The corrected result (log<sub>e</sub> ratio 2.9, corrected from 5.0) still indicates a strong trophic cascade compared to published examples, and likely underestimates the amount of change. We compared other ways of calculating log ratio effect strength, and these also indicated a strong effect, but this should not be confused with a total reversal of the factors affecting aspen. MacNulty et al. further challenged our general interpretation of our results with arguments we addressed previously, and we address them again here. The Yellowstone aspen trophic cascade is not a complete restoration of all aspen stands, but it is a strong and ecologically significant effect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123449"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146188563","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":"Fecal DNA metabarcoding reveals spatial and temporal variation in the summer diets of moose (Alces alces) in north-central British Columbia","authors":"Andrew Dyck , Roy V. Rea , Maria Kuzmina","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123498","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123498","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Moose (<em>Alces alces</em>) are a socially, culturally, and economically important species of large herbivore which inhabits areas throughout many parts of the timber harvesting land base in circumpolar regions of the world. Although the diets of moose vary spatially and seasonally, they predominantly consist of woody perennials such as <em>Betula</em> spp., <em>Populus</em> spp., <em>Salix</em> spp., and <em>Abies</em> spp. but also herbaceous and aquatic plants, that can all be impacted by forest management. Because moose diets vary across their range and seasonally, understanding their local diet composition is crucial for guiding land management decisions that may affect moose range quality and population dynamics. This study aimed to determine the vascular plant species composition in the diets of moose in selected locations of north-central British Columbia (BC), Canada, where moose populations have been declining and to examine how their diets varied geographically, annually (from one summer to the next), and within season (from early to late summer). During the summers of 2020, 2021, and 2022, moose fecal samples were collected from three areas in north-central BC known to be occupied in summer by moose and analyzed with DNA metabarcoding using a technique employing the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) to determine the plant species composition in the collected fecal samples. Frequencies of identified plants from 14 families and 18 genera were separately compared across space and time using Frequency of Occurrence, Relative Read Abundance, Pianka’s Niche Overlap Index, and two-sided Fisher’s exact tests. The diversity of plants in the diet was also compared. Most of the identified taxa fell into 5 families: Onagraceae, Betulaceae, Grossulariaceae, Rosaceae, and Ericaceae. Results indicated considerable variation in diet between geographical areas with low variation in diet between years and a need for increased sampling effort within early and late seasons. We encourage forest managers to incorporate our findings into forest management decision-making on moose summer ranges, particularly in areas where moose are an important management objective or where their numbers are declining.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123498"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146074690","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}
Christopher Marsh , Matthew D. Hurteau , Owen Burney
{"title":"Carbon stock models for early post-fire reforestation efforts in the southwestern US","authors":"Christopher Marsh , Matthew D. Hurteau , Owen Burney","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123507","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123507","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changing climate and high-severity wildfire are causing widespread tree mortality across the southwestern United States, significantly reducing the seed source availability to support post-fire regeneration of forest and woodland. This presents a challenge to both forest regeneration, and the potential contribution of disturbed areas to carbon storage. Planting tree seedlings can accelerate reforestation and rates of carbon sequestration, but in the semi-arid southwestern US, the carbon storage potential of reforestation efforts is uncertain due to limited information on seedling growth and survival rates. We surveyed eight post-wildfire reforestation sites and developed allometric equations to predict carbon sequestration as a function of directly measured seedling size, and indirectly using years since planting and current and future climate scenarios. Our findings highlight the critical role of seedling survival in the first few years after planting, which dramatically alters carbon stock trajectories. Future climate conditions, characterized by higher temperatures at low-elevation sites, may hinder reforestation efforts and reduce the carbon storage potential of these areas. Given our findings, we recommend climate-informed planting strategies in post-wildfire areas, including adjusting planting densities to maximize carbon stock accumulation while ensuring future wildfire resiliency. This research offers practical insights for forest managers aiming to improve reforestation outcomes, particularly as we face the challenges of a changing climate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123507"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146035621","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":"Close-to-nature management enhances ectomycorrhizal fungal dominance across stand ages in Pinus massoniana plantations","authors":"Jie Wang, Honglang Duan, Qiqiang Guo, Liehua Tie, Shengnan Ouyang, Zongzheng Chai","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123504","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123504","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Close-to-nature management (CTNM) has been increasingly advocated as a sustainable strategy to maintain long-term soil fertility and productivity in plantations. Yet its effects on fungal guilds and their ecological linkages remains unclear. This study examined how CTNM affects fungal community composition, diversity, and co-occurrence networks across young, middle-aged and near-mature <em>Pinus massoniana</em> plantations. Soil fungal communities were profiled using amplicon sequencing and assigned to functional guilds based FungalTraits database. Community composition, diversity and co-occurrences networks were analyzed, and the main plant-soil drivers of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi were identified through variation partitioning and structure equation modeling (SEM). CTNM consistently increased the relative abundance of ECM fungi across all stand stages, whereas saprotrophic and pathogenic fungi remained largely unchanged. ECM diversity was significantly higher in middle-aged and near-mature stand stages under CNTM. Network analysis revealed that CTNM weakened ECM-ECM but enhanced ECM-saprotroph linkages. Plant and soil variables together explained 72.70 % of ECM community variation, with plant attributes contributing more (59.20 %) than soil properties. SEM further indicated that plant diversity indirectly enhanced ECM abundance through increased soil organic carbon content. CTNM enhances ECM dominance and modifies fungal guild connectivity, thereby strengthening plant-soil-fungus linkages in <em>P. massoniana</em> plantation. By coupling plant diversity with soil carbon dynamics, CTNM contributes to the maintenance of sustainable forest functioning and soil fertility over stand development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123504"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145974873","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":"Soil pH and alkaline phosphatase-harboring microorganisms closely link to available phosphorus dynamics of Cunninghamia lanceolata plantations","authors":"Song Wang , Honggang Sun , Gongxiu He","doi":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123530","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123530","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil microorganisms play a pivotal role in regulating plant productivity and biogeochemical processes in forest ecosystems. Here, we investigated shifts in soil microbial community, chemical properties, and extracellular enzyme activities across a chronosequence of <em>Cunninghamia lanceolata</em> plantations aged 5–60 years. Our findings demonstrated that the Shannon diversity indices of both bacteria and fungi, along with the abundances of bacteria and fungi exhibited age-associated fluctuations. Fungal community composition exhibited differences between young with half-mature stages (5–20 years) and near-mature with mature stages (25–35 years), while that of bacteria displayed differences between young with half-mature stages (5–20 years) and overmature stages (41–60 years). Specifically, young and over-mature forests promoted oligotrophic and pathogenic taxa (i.e. class of <em>Ustilaginomycetes</em> and <em>Dothideomycetes,</em> and <em>Chloroflexi</em> phylum), while middle-aged stands enriched copiotrophic groups (i.e. phylum of <em>Mortierellomycota</em> and <em>Rozellomycota</em>). Except for soil pH, total nitrogen, and acid phosphatase, the variation ranges of soil nutrients and enzyme activities exceeded 50 % between the forest ages of 5 and 60 years. Soil factors including total phosphorus, pH, dissolved organic carbon, and NO<sub>3</sub><sup>-</sup>-N jointly explained 23.50 % and 17.52 % of the variations in bacterial and fungal communities, respectively. In addition, microbial network complexity and bacterial Shannon index exhibited a close relationship with soil available nitrogen and pH, respectively. The proposed mechanism suggests that the fluctuations in NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N content driven by forest aging negatively influences soil pH, which subsequently lowers bacterial Shannon index and abundances of microorganisms secreting alkaline phosphatase, thereby reducing the availability of available phosphorus. Notably, natural understory colonization by broad-leaved trees shifted microbial communities to resemble those of 15-year-younger plantations, and their microbial community changes were closely related to dissolved organic carbon and <em>Ascomycota</em> phylum. Overall, our findings highlight stage-specific patterns in soil microbial diversity, abundance, and composition, which mediate nutrient transformations through distinct biogeochemical pathways in <em>Cunninghamia lanceolata</em> plantations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12350,"journal":{"name":"Forest Ecology and Management","volume":"605 ","pages":"Article 123530"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146035581","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}