Perspectives: Opportunities in production ecology research and application.

Forest growth can be examined based on statistical representations from inventories and experiments, with variation parceled among correlated factors. The process-focused approach of production ecology accounts for patterns in growth as a function of resources in the environment, the proportion obtained, the efficiency of using resources to fix carbon, and the allocation of carbon to various components (such as stem growth). The state-of-knowledge from four decades of research and application in production ecology highlights great opportunities for new research and applications, including why growth differs across sites and among trees withing sites, and how growth differs between rotational forest systems and continuous cover systems. The combination of statistical analysis of patterns in forests with production ecology accounting will provide strong insights for future forests. • Forest growth can be examined statistically, and also based on processes. • Production ecology explains growth based on resources and ecophysiology. • Resource use efficiency differs among trees and forests, changing growth. • Production ecology has great opportunity to expand insights about forest growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]