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ERE特刊征稿|Focus on Stewarding Old and Mature Forests

08 Aug 2025 gabriels

特刊详情

客座编辑

Alexander Evans，美国森林管理协会
Jennifer Chandler，美国宾夕法尼亚西切斯特大学
Miranda Curzon，美国爱荷华州立大学
ristina Eisenberg，美国俄勒冈州立大学
Austin Himes，美国华盛顿州立大学

主题范围

Old forests are critical ecosystem that are rare and at high risk. Old growth and other old forests play essential roles in supporting biodiversity, hydrological regimes, nutrient cycles, carbon storage, and numerous other ecological processes. The decline in old forests has negative consequences for many species and ecosystem functions. Further, the very nature of old forests means their development can take centuries, so replacing lost old forests this century is difficult if not impossible. Recent policy efforts in the U.S. have brought conservation of these forests back into the spotlight and highlight new issue areas that have not received sufficient attention in the past.

This focus collection will collect science, practice, and policy to advance the conservation of old forests globally by addressing multiple facets including:

The value of old-growth forests and old trees. This includes empirical research on unique ecological roles of old forests and trees, valuation of these forests’ contributions to people and ecosystem services, and explorations of the diverse ways that these forests are important to people for cultural, spiritual, aesthetic, and relational reasons.
The status and function of existing old-growth forests and old trees. This includes the spatial extent of old forests which are often poorly catalogued or mapped; new insights into how old forests and trees function; and research into the threats to these forests at both the stand and landscape scale, and their resilience.
Protection and conservation of old forests. Protection and conservation of old forests can include a broad range of topics such as policies to reduce harvest or land use change as well as stewardship to mitigate wildfire, invasive species, or other threats.
Stewardship to foster future old forests. Because old forests are rare and getting rarer, urgent action is needed to replace the old forests we have lost and will continue to lose as the climate warms and dries. Forests globally co-evolved with Indigenous Peoples stewarding them using place-based Indigenous Knowledge. Additional research is needed on how to bring together multiple knowledge systems and ways of knowing to encourage the development of old forest attributes in mature forests in specific ecoregions. This includes silviculture and management to cultivate old-growth characteristics in secondary forests and plantations of different forest types around the world, and ecocultural practices such as cultural burning. It also includes Indigenous perspectives on conservation of culturally significant understory plant species that supported soil health and helped increase the flow of nutrients to trees.

投稿流程

特刊文章与ERE期刊常规文章遵循相同的审稿流程和内容标准，并采用同样的投稿模式。

有关准备文章及投稿的详细信息，可以参阅IOPscience页面的作者指南。

作者可登入期刊主页进行在线投稿，先选择“文章类型”，然后在“选择特刊”的下拉框中选择“Focus on Stewarding Old and Mature Forests”。

投稿截止日期：2026年4月30日。

期刊介绍

Environmental Research: Ecology

Environmental Research: Ecology（ERE）是一本多学科、金色开放获取的期刊，致力于以关于全球变化、弹性、减轻和适应影响的兼具科学进展和评估的方式，解决在环境科学、大尺度生态学、生物多样性和保护的交界领域的重要全球挑战。本刊为促进环境科学家、生态学家、资源管理者和政策制定者的对话提供了论坛。本刊鼓励所有的研究方法，包括定量、定性、实验、理论和应用方法。