Forest ecology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Tropical forest expansion into previously unforested areas contributes substantially to carbon sequestration, offering an additional pathway for offsetting CO₂ emissions and enhancing the resilience of future carbon dynamics.

Continuous 90-year trends of butterflies and deadwood-dependent beetles show clear mid-century declines and only partial recovery of these taxa. The declines were clearly related to agricultural intensification, and climate change and more biodiversity-friendly management helped in the recovery and stabilization — although butterflies are still far from their original diversity.

Ectomycorrhizal woody plants are less sensitive to mild drought than arbuscular mycorrhizal plants, but decline more under severe drought, based on a global phylogenetic meta-analysis of biomass responses to drought in 232 woody species.

Natural expansion of tropical moist forests sequesters more above-ground carbon than post-deforestation secondary forest regrowth, according to satellite-derived forest cover change and LiDAR-derived biomass estimates.

A new model that integrates satellite-based thermal and soil-moisture observations into a two-source energy balance framework accurately captures rapid forest responses to flash droughts, as validated by multi-source field data.

Mining is expanding globally, but the effects on biodiversity are poorly understood. This study shows that mining caused major forest loss between 2001 and 2022. This loss varied by commodity and location, not always scaling with deforestation risk.

Deforestation over the past century represents a crucial challenge for biodiversity conservation, but whether biocultural sites can improve conservation outcomes is still unclear. This study examines biocultural sites across China to test how these influence forest conservation outcomes.

Tropical forest expansion into previously unforested areas contributes substantially to carbon sequestration, offering an additional pathway for offsetting CO₂ emissions and enhancing the resilience of future carbon dynamics.

Continuous 90-year trends of butterflies and deadwood-dependent beetles show clear mid-century declines and only partial recovery of these taxa. The declines were clearly related to agricultural intensification, and climate change and more biodiversity-friendly management helped in the recovery and stabilization — although butterflies are still far from their original diversity.

Yangwei Cong describes how drone docking stations can improve the coverage and efficacy of phenological monitoring in forests.

Forests cover almost a third of earth’s land and supply high-quality streamflow and groundwater. A global synthesis of forested catchments provides surprising insights into the importance of overland flow, soils and antecedent conditions.

César Marín feels privileged to work among giants.

Natural disturbances, such as windthrows, pest outbreaks and wildfires, pose a major economic threat for the forestry sector. By coupling spatially explicit ecological and economic forest models, this study assesses the costs of natural disturbances under current and future climate conditions for all of Europe.