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Forests worldwide are increasingly threatened by a wide range of human-induced socioecological challenges, such as urbanization, invasive species, and climate change. Using automated content analysis, we analyzed 14,855 abstracts published in seven prominent applied forestry journals between 2000 and 2013 to determine the degree to which these publications are providing forest managers with the information needed to address these challenges. We found that most articles still focus on more traditional forestry topics (e.g., silviculture and timber harvesting), with limited evidence of effort to address socioecological challenges. Although these traditional topics are essential to forest management, framing this research within the broader context of contemporary socioecological challenges will improve forest managers' abilities to address these challenges and contribute to the sustainability of forest ecosystems.Management and Policy Implications:Forests are impacted by many socioecological challenges (i.e., human-induced stressors, such as urbanization, climate change, invasive species, and others) that hinder their ability to provide important ecosystem services sustainably. A key role of forest researchers is to provide forest managers with the information required to address these challenges, with applied forestry journals potentially serving as a channel for information transfer between these two parties. Nevertheless, we found that much of the research published in these journals focuses on more traditional forestry topics and provides little information/guidance on how to address contemporary socioecological challenges. We recommend three ways in which forest researchers can meet this need while still reporting important traditionally based forestry research: by placing traditionally based research into the broader context of ecosystem services and socioecological challenges, by promoting interdisciplinary thinking through communication of how research findings relate to social and economic aspects of forestry, and by making sure this information is highlighted in the abstracts of research articles to ensure its communication to even those readers just scanning an article. These recommendations will help to communicate still-needed, traditionally based forestry research in a way that helps forest managers to address contemporary socioecological challenges.

AbstractResource-rich restoration sites are prone to invasion by aggressive plants that prevent community recovery. Reducing light by sowing non-persistent cover crops and immobilizing nitrogen by amending soils with sawdust, however, may prevent this scenario in restored sedge meadows by limiting Phalaris arundinacea(reed canarygrass) invasions. To determine the usefulness of these resource-reducing methods, a perennial target community and Phalariswere sown with a high-diversity cover crop, a low-diversity cover crop, or no cover crop in plots with or without sawdust under controlled hydrological conditions. Aboveground biomass was measured after two growing seasons, and light and soil nitrogen were measured throughout the study. Only high-diversity cover crops reduced light, and in doing so they decreased target community and Phalarisestablishment by 73% and 68%, respectively, resulting in a Phalaris-dominated community. Despite only reducing nitrogen over the short term, amending soils with sawdust decreased Phalarisestablishment by 56% without hindering target community establishment, resulting in a graminoid-rich community similar to natural sedge meadows. The target community, however, reduced both light and nitrogen, and in doing so decreased Phalarisestablishment by 78% and 67% in plots with and without sawdust, respectively. Our results show that rapidly establishing a perennial plant community may be more important than reducing initial resource availability when trying to limit invasions of resource-rich restorations.