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Climate change threatens the provisioning of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity (ESB). The climate sensitivity of ESB may vary with forest development from young to old‐growth conditions as structure and composition shift over time and space. This study addresses knowledge gaps hindering implementation of adaptive forest management strategies to sustain ESB. We focused on a number of ESB indicators to (a) analyze associations among carbon storage, timber growth rate, and species richness along a forest development gradient; (b) test the sensitivity of these associations to climatic changes; and (c) identify hotspots of climate sensitivity across the boreal–temperate forests of eastern North America. From pre‐existing databases and literature, we compiled a unique dataset of 18,507 forest plots. We used a full Bayesian framework to quantify responses of nine ESB indicators. The Bayesian models were used to assess the sensitivity of these indicators and their associations to projected increases in temperature and precipitation. We found the strongest association among the investigated ESB indicators in old forests (>170 years). These forests simultaneously support high levels of carbon storage, timber growth, and species richness. Older forests also exhibit low climate sensitivity of associations among ESB indicators as compared to younger forests. While regions with a currently low combined ESB performance benefitted from climate change, regions with a high ESB performance were particularly vulnerable to climate change. In particular, climate sensitivity was highest east and southeast of the Great Lakes, signaling potential priority areas for adaptive management. Our findings suggest that strategies aimed at enhancing the representation of older forest conditions at landscape scales will help sustain ESB in a changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Primary forests have high conservation value but are rare in Europe due to historic land use. Yet many primary forest patches remain unmapped, and it is unclear to what extent they are effectively protected. Our aim was to (1) compile the most comprehensive European‐scale map of currently known primary forests, (2) analyse the spatial determinants characterizing their location and (3) locate areas where so far unmapped primary forests likely occur. Location: Europe. Methods: We aggregated data from a literature review, online questionnaires and 32 datasets of primary forests. We used boosted regression trees to explore which biophysical, socio‐economic and forest‐related variables explain the current distribution of primary forests. Finally, we predicted and mapped the relative likelihood of primary forest occurrence at a 1‐km resolution across Europe. Results: Data on primary forests were frequently incomplete or inconsistent among countries. Known primary forests covered 1.4 Mha in 32 countries (0.7% of Europe's forest area). Most of these forests were protected (89%), but only 46% of them strictly. Primary forests mostly occurred in mountain and boreal areas and were unevenly distributed across countries, biogeographical regions and forest types. Unmapped primary forests likely occur in the least accessible and populated areas, where forests cover a greater share of land, but wood demand historically has been low. Main conclusions: Despite their outstanding conservation value, primary forests are rare and their current distribution is the result of centuries of land use and forest management. The conservation outlook for primary forests is uncertain as many are not strictly protected and most are small and fragmented, making them prone to extinction debt and human disturbance. Predicting where unmapped primary forests likely occur could guide conservation efforts, especially in Eastern Europe where large areas of primary forest still exist but are being lost at an alarming pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past several decades, a trend in forestry and silviculture has been toward promoting complexity in forest ecosystems, but how complexity is conceived and described has shifted over time as new ideas and terminology have been introduced. Historically, ecologically-focused silviculture has focused largely on manipulation of structural complexity, but often with the functional role of features in mind. Recently there has been a shift toward viewing complexity in an “adaptive” or “resilience” context, with a focus on understanding forests as complex adaptive systems. As new concepts and terminology are introduced it will be essential that silviculture researchers understand their dissemination into silviculture research, experimental design, and treatment implementation. With this goal in mind we set out to better understand: (1) how complexity terminology and ideas have shifted over time in silviculture, (2) how different conceptions of complexity have been incorporated into silviculture experiments and treatments, and (3) how various complexity concepts are being reconciled with each other in practice. We conducted a multi-stage review of the silvicultural literature for the time period 1992–2017 that included: (1) a broad keyword analysis, (2) a detailed review of a narrower subset of publications, and (3) a thorough review of a set of silvicultural experiments that included a focus on complexity in their design. We also developed a set of case studies that illustrate shifts in complexity conceptions in silvicultural experiment design and analysis. Our analysis indicates considerable lags in incorporation of complexity-focused terminology and ideas into silvicultural research and experimental treatment design. Very few silviculture-focused studies have incorporated adaptive complexity concepts explicitly into design or analysis, even though these concepts were introduced nearly a decade ago and are widely discussed in the literature. However, in our case studies we document how silviculture experiments and research programs that were not designed explicitly around complexity concepts have begun to incorporate these ideas into analysis of treatment outcomes. Silviculture researchers should focus on reconciling conceptions of complexity through analysis of existing experiments and with modeling studies, as well as attempting to better understand mechanistic relationships among structural, functional, and adaptive conceptions of complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change will alter forest ecosystems and their provisioning of services. Forests in the Carpathian Mountains store high amounts of carbon and provide livelihoods to local people; however, no study has yet assessed their future long-term dynamics under climate change. Therefore, we selected a representative area of 1340 km2 to investigate the effects of changing climate and disturbance regimes on (i) the spatial dynamics of the dominant tree species and forest types and (ii) the trajectories of the associated aboveground live carbon (ALC). We simulated 500 years of change under four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, incorporating wind and bark beetle disturbances using the LANDIS-II forest change model. Our simulations revealed a lagged adaptation of the forest landscape to climate change. While Picea abies dominance declined in all scenarios, Carpinus betulus expanded at low elevations and Acer pseudoplatanus at mid-elevations. We also found a slow but continuous expansion of Quercus petraea and Q. robur at low elevations and of Fagus sylvatica at mid and high elevations. This change in species composition was accompanied by a significant reduction of ALC: on average over the simulation period, unmitigated climate change reduced ALC between − 2.1% (RCP2.6) and − 14.0% (RCP8.5), while disturbances caused an additional reduction of ALC between − 4.5% (RCP2.6) and − 6.6% (RCP8.5). Therefore, foresighted management strategies are needed to facilitate vegetation adaptation to climate change, with the goal of stabilizing carbon storage and maintaining economic value of future Carpathian forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• First study comparing disturbance history of adjacent forest types in primary state. • Natural disturbance history was synchronous among different forest types. • Severe disturbances were infrequent, but a key part of their dynamics. • Moderate- and low-severity disturbances were asynchronous and random. • A range of natural disturbances ensure spatiotemporal heterogeneity and resilience. Understanding temporal and spatial variations in historical disturbance regimes across intact, continuous, and altitudinally diverse primary forest landscapes is imperative to help forecast forest development and adapt forest management in an era of rapid environmental change. Because few complex primary forest landscapes remain in Europe, previous research has largely described disturbance regimes for individual forest types and smaller isolated stands. We studied the largest but still largely unprotected mountain primary forest landscape in temperate Europe, the Făgăraș Mountains of Romania. To describe historical disturbance regimes and synchronicity in disturbance activity and trends between two widespread forest community types, dominated by Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), we established 191 permanent study plots (70 beech; 121 spruce) across 11 valleys, thereby providing information at both stand and landscape levels. We used a dendrochronological approach to reconstruct and describe the spatiotemporal patterns of historical disturbances. We observed a diverse spectrum of disturbance severities and timing across the forest landscape. High-severity disturbances created periods of synchrony in disturbance activity at the landscape scale, while moderate- and low-severity disturbances were asynchronous and random in both spruce- and beech-dominated primary forests. We detected a peak of canopy disturbance across the region at the end of the nineteenth century, with the most important periods of disturbance between the 1890s and 1910s. At the stand scale, we observed periods of synchronised disturbances with varying severities across both forest types. The level of disturbance synchrony varied widely among the stands. The beta regression showed that spruce forests had significantly higher average synchrony and higher between-stand variability of synchrony than the beech-dominated forests. Synchronised disturbances with higher severity were infrequent, but they were critical as drivers of subsequent forest development pathways and dynamics across both forest types. Our results provide valuable insight into future resilience to climate-driven alterations of disturbance regimes in spruce- and beech-dominated mountain temperate forests in the Carpathians. We suggest that conservation efforts should recognize strictly protecting large continuous and altitudinally diversified forest landscapes such as Făgăraș Mts. as a necessary measure to tackle climate change and ensure temporal and spatial structural heterogeneity driven by a wide range of disturbances. The diverse and synchronous disturbance activity among two interconnected forest vegetation types highlights the need for complex spatiotemporal forest management approaches that emulate disturbance synchronicity to foster biodiversity across multiple forest vegetation types within forest landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dead wood (DW) has great importance for many wildlife species and ecological processes. The volume of DW is considered a useful indicator of the sustainability and maintenance of biodiversity in forests. Though dry-mesic oak forests cover large areas in Hungary, little is known about DW quantities or dynamics in these forests. We investigated DW conditions in five age classes of dry-mesic Quercus petraea and Q. cerris dominated forests in the Hungarian Carpathians. Stands of the first four age classes (age class 1: 40–59, age class 2: 60–79, age class 3: 80–99, age class 4: 100–119 years old) were managed and stands at least 120 years old were unmanaged at least for 30 years (age class 5). We measured the volume, density, dominance and size distribution of standing DW and volume of downed DW. We also evaluated the decay stages of DW on an ordinal scale (I-V, intact to well-decayed). The effect of age class on the derived variables such as density, dominance, volume or proportion of DW was analysed with general linear mixed models using age class as a fixed and region as a random effect. Mean total DW volume did not reach 15 m 3 /ha in age class 1, 2 and 3. A much larger volume of DW was found in age class 4 and 5, where the mean total volume of DW was 36.9 and 45.1 m 3 /ha, respectively. Volume and proportion of total DW over 30 cm in diameter were markedly lower in age classes 1, 2 and 3 than in age classes 4 and 5, moreover standing and downed DW over 30 cm in diameter were totally absent in stands under 100 years old. The proportion of well-decomposed (decay stage IV and V) DW was much lower (3–18% of the volume) in all five age classes than in old-growth stands of dry-mesic oak forests. After three decades of non-intervention (age class 5), the volume of DW can approach that of old-growth forests. The 40–99-year old stands contained a similarly low percentage of DW as other managed dry-mesic oak forests in Europe. Based on the results, it is likely that stands greater than 100 years old will support much higher biodiversity of saproxylic organisms compared to younger stands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest management practices emphasizing stand structural complexity are of interest across the northern forest region of the United States because of their potential to enhance carbon storage. Our research is part of a long-term study evaluating silvicultural treatments that promote late-successional forest characteristics in northern hardwood-conifer forests. We are testing the hypothesis that aboveground biomass development (carbon storage) is greater in structural complexity enhancement (SCE) treatments when compared to conventional uneven-aged treatments. Structural complexity enhancement treatments were compared against selection systems (single-tree and group) modified to retain elevated structure. Manipulations and controls were replicated across 2-ha treatment units at two study areas in Vermont, United States. Data on aboveground biomass pools (live trees, standing dead, and downed wood) were collected pre- and post-treatment, then again a decade later. Species group-specific allometric equations were used to estimate live and standing dead biomass, and downed log biomass was estimated volumetrically. We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator to project "no-treatment" baselines specific to treatment units, allowing measured carbon responses to be normalized against differences in site characteristics affecting tree growth and pre-treatment stand structure. Results indicate that biomass development and carbon storage 10 yr post-treatment were greatest in SCE treatments compared to conventional treatments, with the greatest increases in coarse woody material (CWM) pools. Structural complexity enhancement treatments contained 12.67 Mg/ha carbon in CWM compared to 6.62 Mg/ha in conventional treatments and 8.84 Mg/ha in areas with no treatment. Percentage differences between post-treatment carbon and simulated/projected baseline values indicate that carbon pool values in SCE treatments returned closest to pre-harvest or untreated levels over conventional treatments. Total carbon storage in SCE aboveground pools was 15.90% less than that projected for no-treatment compared to 44.94% less in conventionally treated areas. Results from classification and regression tree models indicated treatment as the strongest predictor of aboveground C storage followed by site-specific variables, suggesting a strong influence of both on carbon pools. Structural enhancement treatments have the potential to increase carbon storage in managed northern hardwoods. They offer an alternative for sustainable management integrating carbon, associated climate change mitigation benefits, and late-successional forest structure and habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful tree regeneration is essential for sustainable forest management, yet it can be limited by the interaction of harvesting effects and multiple ecological drivers. In northern hardwood forests, for example, there is uncertainty whether low-intensity selection harvesting techniques will result in adequate and desirable regeneration. Our research is part of a long-term study that tests the hypothesis that a silvicultural approach called "structural complexity enhancement" (SCE) can accelerate the development of late-successional forest structure and functions. Our objective is to understand the regeneration dynamics following three uneven-aged forestry treatments with high levels of retention: single-tree selection, group selection, and SCE. Regeneration density and diversity can be limited by differing treatment effects on or interactions among light availability, competitive environment, substrate, and herbivory. To explore these relationships, manipulations and controls were replicated across 2 ha treatment units at two Vermont sites. Forest inventory data were collected pre-harvest and periodically over 13 years post-harvest. We used mixed effects models with repeated measures to evaluate the effect of treatment on seedling and sapling density and diversity (Shannon-Weiner H'). The treatments were all successful in recruiting a sapling class with significantly greater sapling densities compared to the controls. However, undesirable and prolific beech (Fagus americana) sprouting dominates some patches in the understory of all the treatments, creating a high degree of spatial variability in the competitive environment for regeneration. Multivariate analyses suggest that while treatment had a dominant effect, other factors were influential in driving regeneration responses. These results indicate variants of uneven-aged systems that retain or enhance elements of stand structural complexity--including old-growth characteristics--can generally foster abundant regeneration of important late successional tree species depending on site conditions, but they may require beech control where beech sprouting inhibits desired regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Temperate forests have been fundamentally altered by land use and other stressors globally; these have reduced the abundance of primary and old-growth forests in particular. Despite many regional studies, the literature lacks a global synthesis of temperate old-growth structural characteristics. In this study we compare literature derived data on mature and old-growth moist temperate forests with the aim of: (i) exploring global commonalities; (ii) investigating sources of variability among systems; and (iii) highlighting data gaps and research needs. We compiled a dataset of 147 records from 93 papers, and analyzed a set of structural indicators: basal area, stem density, large living trees, live aboveground biomass, quadratic mean diameter, and coarse woody debris volume. These indicators were contrasted between mature and old-growth age classes at a global level and across continents and broad forest types, testing for significance through Monte-Carlo permutation procedure. We also related structural indicators to age, climatic and geographical descriptors. Our results suggest that all structural indicators vary across systems in relation to geographical, compositional, and climatic influences. However old-growth forests showed global commonalities in structure when compared to mature forests: significantly higher densities of large living trees, higher quadratic mean diameter, and higher amounts of live aboveground biomass and coarse woody debris. Furthermore we found inconsistency in the structural variables reported by different papers; lack of studies on temperate forests in Russia, and Western and Central Asia. The findings improve our understanding of old-growth structure and function, and will help inform sustainable forest management and conservation approaches world-wide. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Land use is a critical factor in the global carbon cycle, but land-use effects on carbon fluxes are poorly understood in many regions. One such region is Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where land-use intensity decreased substantially after the collapse of socialism, and farmland abandonment and forest expansion have been widespread. Our goal was to examine how land-use trends affected net carbon fluxes in western Ukraine (57 000 km) and to assess the region's future carbon sequestration potential. Using satellite-based forest disturbance and farmland abandonment rates from 1988 to 2007, historic forest resource statistics, and a carbon bookkeeping model, we reconstructed carbon fluxes from land use in the 20th century and assessed potential future carbon fluxes until 2100 for a range of forest expansion and logging scenarios. Our results suggested that the low-point in forest cover occurred in the 1920s. Forest expansion between 1930 and 1970 turned the region from a carbon source to a sink, despite intensive logging during socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union created a vast, but currently largely untapped carbon sequestration potential (up to∼150 Tg C in our study region). Future forest expansion will likely maintain or even increase the region's current sink strength of 1.48 Tg C yr. This may offer substantial opportunities for offsetting industrial carbon emissions and for rural development in regions with otherwise diminishing income opportunities. Throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, millions of hectares of farmland were abandoned after the collapse of socialism; thus similar reforestation opportunities may exist in other parts of this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Temperate forests are an important carbon sink, yet there is debate regarding the net effect of forest management practices on carbon storage. Few studies have investigated the effects of different silvicultural systems on forest carbon stocks, and the relative strength of in situ forest carbon versus wood products pools remains in question. Our research describes (1) the impact of harvesting frequency and proportion of post-harvest structural retention on carbon storage in northern hardwood-conifer forests, and (2) tests the significance of including harvested wood products in carbon accounting at the stand scale. We stratified Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots to control for environmental, forest structural and compositional variables, resulting in 32 FIA plots distributed throughout the northeastern U.S. We used the USDA Forest Service''s Forest Vegetation Simulator to project stand development over a 160 year period under nine different forest management scenarios. Simulated treatments represented a gradient of increasing structural retention and decreasing harvesting frequencies, including a “no harvest” scenario. The simulations incorporated carbon flux between aboveground forest biomass (dead and live pools) and harvested wood products. Mean carbon storage over the simulation period was calculated for each silvicultural scenario. We investigated tradeoffs among scenarios using a factorial treatment design and two-way ANOVA. Mean carbon sequestration was significantly (α =0.05) greater for “no management” compared to any of the active management scenarios. Of the harvest treatments, those favoring high levels of structural retention and decreased harvesting frequency stored the greatest amounts of carbon. Classification and regression tree analysis showed that management scenario was the strongest predictor of total carbon storage, though site-specific variables were important secondary predictors. In order to isolate the effect of in situ forest carbon storage and harvested wood products, we did not include the emissions benefits associated with substituting wood fiber for other construction materials or energy sources. Modeling results from this study show that harvesting frequency and structural retention significantly affect mean carbon storage. Our results illustrate the importance of both post-harvest forest structure and harvesting frequency in carbon storage, and are valuable to land owners interested in managing forests for carbon sequestration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Managing for stand structural complexity in northern hardwood forests has been proposed as a method for promoting microhabitat characteristics important to eastern red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). We evaluated the effects of alternate, structure-based silvicultural systems on red-backed salamander populations at two research sites in northwestern Vermont. Treatments included two uneven-aged approaches (single-tree selection and group-selection) and one unconventional approach, termed “structural complexity enhancement” (SCE), that promotes development of late-successional structure, including elevated levels of coarse woody debris (CWD). Treatments were applied to 2ha units and were replicated two to four times depending on treatment. We surveyed red-backed salamanders with a natural cover search method of transects nested within vegetation plots 1 year after logging. Abundance estimates corrected for detection probability were calculated from survey data with a binomial mixture model. Abundance estimates differed between study areas and were influenced by forest structural characteristics. Model selection was conducted using Akaike Information Criteria, corrected for over-dispersed data and small sample size (QAICc). We found no difference in abundance as a response to treatment as a whole, suggesting that all of the uneven-aged silvicultural systems evaluated can maintain salamander populations after harvest. However, abundance was tied to specific structural habitat attributes associated with study plots within treatments. The most parsimonious model of habitat covariates included site, relative density of overstory trees, and density of more-decayed and less-decayed downed CWD. Abundance responded positively to the density of downed, well-decayed CWD and negatively to the density of poorly decayed CWD and to overstory relative density. CWD volume was not a strong predictor of salamander abundance. We conclude that structural complexity enhancement and the two uneven-aged approaches maintained important microhabitat characteristics for red-backed salamander populations in the short term. Over the long-term, given decay processes as a determinant of biological availability, forestry practices such as SCE that enhance CWD availability and recruitment may result in associated population responses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reports that forest managers need a comprehensive scientific understanding of natural stand development processes when designing silvicultural systems that integrate ecological and economic objectives, including a better appreciation of the nature of disturbance regimes and the biological legacies, such as live trees, snags, and logs, that they leave behind. How most conceptual forest development models do not incorporate current knowledge of the: complexity of structures and developmental processes; duration of development in long-lived forests; complex spatial patterns of stands that develop in later stages of series; and particularly the role of disturbances in creating structural legacies that become key elements of the post-disturbance stands.

• We analysed disturbance-based silvicultural treatments at 217 inventory plots. • Treatments enhanced the variation in individual structural elements. • However, treatments did not fully approximate partial wind disturbances. • Carbon storage was positively associated with stand structural complexity. • Managing for bird habitats improves forest heterogeneity while maintaining high carbon stocks. Disturbance-based silviculture is of increasing interest as an approach to provide multiple ecosystem services and beta diversity in habitat conditions. One such approach increasingly employed in the eastern U.S. is a set of forestry practices developed to diversify forested bird habitats, called Silviculture with Birds in Mind (SBM). While strongly appealing to many private landowners, empirical data have not yet been reported regarding the effects of SBM treatments on forest structure and dynamics and how they compare to natural disturbances. Moreover, the potential of bird-oriented silviculture like SBM to enhance co-benefits, for instance, by retaining high carbon stocks in managed forests, has not been investigated. The objectives of our study were thus (i) to analyze the effects of SBM treatments on forests and compare them with natural disturbances, and (ii) to assess the co-benefits of multiple habitat indicators and carbon storage within three years of silvicultural treatment in mature northern hardwood-conifer forests. We derived 14 stand structural variables as well as carbon storage from 217 SBM inventory plots, and compared them with the effects of intermediate-severity wind disturbance using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). Subsequently, we applied multi-hierarchical Bayesian models to investigate SBM treatment effects on aboveground carbon storage, as well as on four key habitat indicators. We also used Bayesian models to derive the relationships between habitat indicators and carbon storage. SBM treatments created a diversity of post-harvest stand conditions and, while having lower values for some structural characteristics in comparison to controls, significantly enhanced the variation in individual structural elements. Moreover, the treatments were closer in ordinal space to the irregular structure associated with intermediate-severity wind disturbance than untreated control plots. However, the NMDS indicated that SBM treatments did not fully approximate partial wind disturbances. Carbon storage was positively associated with stand structural complexity. Disturbance-based approaches like SBM help diversify habitat conditions and we expect these effects to become more pronounced as stands respond to the treatments over time. If applied more broadly, treatments targeted at diversifying habitats would also help maintain high carbon stocking at landscape scales. However, as the treatments do not fully emulate the region's natural disturbance regime, we propose widening the portfolio of multi-cohort, retention, and gap-based silvicultural approaches in landscape-scale management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We studied the sensitivity of fire risks to climate change in Himalayan blue pine. • Fire risks were investigated in the wildland-urban-interface of two valleys in Bhutan. • Fire behavior was simulated under four scenarios representing climate extremes. • A two-fold increase in fire hazards in Bhutan's blue pine forests is predicted. • The findings will help forest managers adapt forest management to climate change. Increased wildfire activity in the Himalayan Mountains due to climate change may place rural livelihoods at risk, yet potential climate change effects on forest fires in this region are poorly investigated. Here we use Bhutan's blue pine (Pinus wallichiana) ecosystems to study the sensitivity of fire behavior to climatic changes. Wildland fires are one of the biggest threats to forest resources in Bhutan; blue pine ecosystems, in particular, are of high concern because of their importance for rural livelihoods and relatively high frequency of forest fires. Due to the geographical and socioeconomic characteristics of Bhutan, the region is highly sensitive to climate change. We investigated fire hazards in the wildland-urban-interface (WUI) of two valleys in Bhutan (Thimphu and Jakar), where human settlements and infrastructure are surrounded by blue pine forests. We applied FlamMap, a spatially-explicit wildfire simulation model, to simulate fire behavior under four climate scenarios. As indicators of fire behavior, we used flame length, rate of spread, crown fire activity, burn probability, and fire size. With the simulation outcomes we constructed a fire hazard map showing the hotspots of forest fire susceptibility. FlamMap predicts a two-fold increase in fire hazards in the WUI for both study areas owing to climatic changes. The capital city of Thimphu has, on average, greater fire hazards than Jakar, though fire hazards are spatially variable within both study areas. Our study contributes to the understanding of and ability to predict forest fire hazards in Himalayan blue pine ecosystems. The findings will help to more precisely allocate fire management resources in the WUI, plan suburban development to minimize fire risk to livelihoods, and adapt forest management in the face of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Field-based census identified primary forests not classified by remote sensing. • Primary forests represent only 0.21% of the study region, Slovakia. • Inaccessibility determined the clustered distribution of remaining primary forests. • Several primary forest habitat types are completely absent in contemporary landscapes. Given the global intensification of forest management and climate change, protecting and studying forests that develop free of direct human intervention—also known as primary forests—are becoming increasingly important. Yet, most countries still lack data regarding primary forest distribution. Previous studies have tested remote sensing approaches as a promising tool for identifying primary forests. However, their precision is highly dependent on data quality and resolution, which vary considerably. This has led to underestimation of primary forest abundance and distribution in some regions, such as the temperate zone of Europe. Field-based inventories of primary forests and methodologies to conduct these assessments are inconsistent; incomplete or inaccurate mapping increases the vulnerability of primary forest systems to continued loss from clearing and land-use change. We developed a comprehensive methodological approach for identifying primary forests, and tested it within one of Europe's hotspots of primary forest abundance: the Carpathian Mountains. From 2009 to 2015, we conducted the first national-scale primary forest census covering the entire 49,036 km2 area of the Slovak Republic. We analyzed primary forest distribution patterns and the representativeness of potential vegetation types within primary forest remnants. We further evaluated the conservation status and extent of primary forest loss. Remaining primary forests are small, fragmented, and often do not represent the potential natural vegetation. We identified 261 primary forest localities. However, they represent only 0.47% of the total forested area, which is 0.21% of the country's land area. The spatial pattern of primary forests was clustered. Primary forests have tended to escape anthropogenic disturbance on sites with higher elevations, steeper slopes, rugged terrain, and greater distances from roads and settlements. Primary forest stands of montane mixed and subalpine spruce forests are more abundant compared to broadleaved forests. Notably, several habitat types are completely missing within primary forests (e.g., floodplain forests). More than 30% of the remaining primary forests are not strictly protected, and harvesting occurred at 32 primary forest localities within the study period. Almost all logging of primary forests was conducted inside of protected areas, underscoring the critical status of primary forest distribution in this part of Europe. Effective conservation strategies are urgently needed to stop the rapid loss and fragmentation of the remaining primary forests. Our approach based on precise, field-based surveys is widely applicable and transferrable to other fragmented forest landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the excitement among forest landowners about participating in the mitigation of climate change with managed forests. The authors explain that excitement should be properly placed as the carbon markets is still developing. Foresters should recognize that not all forms of forest management should qualify for carbon credits. There are three ways by which forestry projects can influence carbon dioxide sequestration and these are by creating new forests, by avoiding their destruction and by manipulating existing forest cover.