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Mixed-Species Forests offers a detailed overview of the current state of knowledge concerning the ecology and management of compositionally and structurally diverse forests. It provides answers to central questions such as:
- What are the scientific concepts used to assess the growth, dynamics and functioning of mixed-species forests, how generalizable are they, and what kind of experiments are necessary to develop them further?
- How do mixed-species stands compare with monocultures in relation to productivity, wood quality, and ecological stability in the face of stress and disturbances?
- How are the effects of species mixtures on ecosystem functioning influenced by the particular species composition, site conditions, and stand structure?
- How does any over- or underyielding at the forest-stand level emerge from the tree and organ level, and what are the main mechanisms behind mixing effects?
- How can our current scientific understanding of mixed-species forests be integrated into silvicultural concepts as well as practical forest management and planning?
- Do the ecological characteristics of mixed-species stands also translate into economic differences between mixtures and monocultures?
In addition, Mixed-Species Forests addresses experimental designs and analytical approaches to study mixed-species forests and provides extensive empirical information, general concepts, models, and management approaches for mixed-species forests. As such, it offers a valuable resource for students, scientists and educators, as well as professional forest planners, managers, and consultants.
- Mixed-species forests: the development of a forest management paradigm
- From observations to evidence about effects of mixed-species stands
- Ecological and physiological processes in mixed versus monospecific stands
- Stand dynamics of mixed-species stands compared with monocultures
- Size-structure dynamics in mixed versus monospecific stands
- Individual tree structure and growth in mixed compared with monospecific stands
- Ecological stability of mixed-species forests
- Modelling mixed-species forest stands
- Silvicultural options for mixed-species stands
- Forest management planning in mixed-species forests
- Economics of mixed forests
- Perspectives for future research directions on mixed-species systems
Hans Pretzsch (*1957) received his Ph. D. in Forest Growth and Yield Science and Biometrics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen and his Dr. h. c. at Czech University of Agriculture of Prag. Dr Pretzsch has been Professor of Forest Growth and Yield Science at Technische Universität München since 1994 and responsible for the network of long-term experimental plots in Bavaria which date back to 1860. For the past 20 years, he focused on general rules of tree and stand growth, forest modelling, and diagnosis of forest growth disturbances. He currently teaches forestry and sustainable resource management to undergraduate and graduate students as well as professional foresters. Special scientific expertise: Spatially explicit modelling of pure and mixed forest stands, Mixed stand analysis, Structural allometry under competitive stress, Application of terrestrial Lidar and Computer tomography for analysis of external and external structures on tree and stand level.
David Forrester (*1978) is a research fellow in the Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia and is currently a visiting scientist in the Silviculture Institute of the University of Freiburg, Germany. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree (2000) and PhD (2004) from the Australian National University. The PhD examined the growth dynamics of mixed-species plantations and how species interactions influence carbon and nutrient pools and fluxes. Dr Forrester has since extended this work by examining water fluxes, light absorption, resource use efficiencies, and the temporal and spatial dynamics of species interactions. Since 2005 he has been a research fellow at the University of Melbourne where his research focuses on how silvicultural treatments that influence fertility, forest structure and crown architecture can be used to influence the growth, log quality, resource use and resource use efficiencies of plantations. In 2008 he won a Victoria Fellowship to travel through Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and synthesise the range of mixed species systems used in plantations as well as the silviculture used to produce solid wood products. In 2009 he received a Humboldt Fellowship to examine the influence of site and climate on species interactions in the Black Forest of Germany. Dr Forrester has also been invited to speak at several international meetings about mixed species systems.
Jürgen Bauhus (1964) is professor of silviculture at Freiburg University, Germany. He studied forest sciences in Freiburg, Vienna and Gottingen and obtained his Diploma (1989) and PhD (1994) from Gottingen University. In his PhD, he analysed the response of European beech forest ecosystems to gap-scale harvesting. Subsequently, he spent 2 years as post-doc at the Biology Department of the University of Quebec at Montreal to work on the dynamics of mixed-species boreal forests, and solutions for their sustainable management. From 1996 to 2003 he worked as lecturer and senior lecturer in silviculture and tree physiology at the Australian National University, where dynamics of mixed-species plantations and native forests were a focus of his research. In 2003, he took up the chair of silviculture at Freiburg University, where he developed a research programme on structure and dynamics of forests, carbon and nutrient cycles, ecological interactions in forest ecosystems as well as the adaptation of forests to global change. At Freiburg University, Prof. Bauhus established the international MSc programme "Forest Ecology and Management" and the graduate school "Environment, Society and Global Change". In 2008 he received the "Professor of the Year Award" of the nation-wide university magazine UNICUM. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and recently edited the book Ecosystem Goods and Services from Plantation Forests. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy at the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Currently, he conducts several research projects that explore the relationship between tree species diversity and ecosystem functioning.
