The paper presents the importance of research which characterizes the natural forest structure for the forest management. The lessons learned in these particular forest ecosystems can be integrated by the forest management objectives, in order to increase the sustainability of this type of resources. The project NATFORMAN was focused on the structure of the natural forest, thus research methodo...

The objective of this study was to provide a method for estimating the opportunity cost of meeting selected sustainable ecosystem objectives on the Olympic National Forest in Washington State. The Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) was used to simulate several silvicultural management regimes. Soil expectation values (SEVs) were calculated using the FVS system and CHEAPO II, a silvicultural and ...

Heavy metals and sulphur have been emitted from the Cu-Ni smelter at Harjavalta since 1945. This article reviews the work that has been published in scientifi c journals after 1975 concerning heavy metal deposition and the effects of pollution on forest ecosystem around Harjavalta. The pollution has had diverse effects on boreal forest ecosystem, e.g. vegetation, nutrient cycle mediated by micr...

Boreal forest and tundra are the major ecosystems in the northern high latitudes in which a large amount of carbon is stored. These ecosystems are nitrogen-limited due to slow mineralization rate of the soil organic nitrogen. Recently, abundant field studies have found that organic nitrogen is another important nitrogen supply for boreal forest and tundra ecosystems. In this study, we incorpora...

Ecosystem analysis has established nutrient cycling as an important area of ecology involving biological, chemical, and geological interactions. Studying the flow of elements through ecosystems provides us with a tool for understanding the functioning of ecosystems. For example, if an ecosystem component has a rapid flux of elements through it, or if it stores large amounts of an element, that ...

Ecosystem services are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems (Brauman et al., 2007). Recognizing the importance of the services provided by ecosystems for human wellbeing is not a new idea, going as far as Plato (Feen, 1996) and the economic conceptualization of ecosystem values (Coase, 1960; Feen, 1996). However, the scientific and practical interests in assessing and trading ecosyst...

Treelines differentiate vastly contrasting ecosystems: open tundra from closed forest. Treeline advance has implications for the climate system due to the impact of the transition from tundra to forest ecosystem on carbon (C) storage and albedo. Treeline advance has been seen to increase above-ground C stocks as low vegetation is replaced with trees but decrease organic soil C stocks as old car...

Doctor Ingeniero de Montes, ICONA Forest Fire Section, Madrid Spain. Abstract: Forest fuels in the Mediterranean ecosystems of Spain are characterized by generalized pyrophytism and large accumulations of woody shrub vegetation. The Forest Service prepared in 1978 a fuel management plan and a program of surveys including: A study on the vegetation's evolution in forests after fires; the experim...

The distribution of forest biomass in a river basin usually has obvious spatial heterogeneity in relation to the locations of the upper and lower reaches of the basin. In the subtropical region of China, a large amount of forest biomass, comprising diverse forest types, plays an important role in maintaining the balance of the regional carbon cycle. However, accurately estimating forest ecosyst...