Due to global climate change and increased forest transformation by humans, accounting for the dynamics of forest ecosystems is becoming a central problem in forestry. We reviewed the success of considering vegetation dynamics in the most influential ecological forest classifications in Russia, the European Union, and North America. Out of the variety of approaches to forest classification, only those that are widely used in forestry and forest inventory were selected. It was found that the system of diagnostic signs developed by genetic forest typology based on the time-stable characteristics of habitats as well as the developed concept of dynamic series of cenosis formation allows us to successfully take into account the dynamics of vegetation. While forest dynamics in European classifications is assessed at a theoretical level, it is also possible to assess forest dynamics in practice due to information obtained from EUNIS habitat classification. In ecological classifications in North America, the problem of vegetation dynamics is most fully solved with ecological site description (ESD), which includes potential vegetation and disturbance factors in the classification features. In habitat type classification (HTC) and biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification (BEC), vegetation dynamics is accounted based on testing the diagnostic species and other signs of potential vegetation for resistance to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Understanding of vegetation–environment associations is fundamental in forming proper forest management methods and improving existing classification structures. We believe that this topic is relevant as part of the ongoing search for new solutions within all significant forest ecological classifications.

Paper describes key elements of a genetic approach to classification of forest types – one of the original forest typological research directions in Russia summarizes the results of research over the hundred-year period of formation and development of this promising (from the point of view of sustainable management of natural resources) scientific direction. Authors provide a map of current forest type genetic classification use in the Russian Federation, and outline key perspective directions in the development of genetic classifications within a framework of the described approach. Modern genetic forest typology is an interdisciplinary science. It uses forestry, soil science, biogeography, and landscape ecology, allow you to reflect the processes of forest vegetation dynamics in syntaxons and on maps. Therefore, it gives excellent results for systematizing not only primary forests, but also a variety of secondary plant communities with extremely variable composition. Authors believe that there are the following main avenues of genetic approach to forest type classifications development: improvement of forest zoning technologies based upon assessment of environmental factors’ quantitative values, including development of spatial models for estimating factor values; development of new automated quantitative assessment methods for forest site conditions and tree stands’ parameters using high spatial resolution data obtained from aerial drones; development and verification of the rules for combining forest areas with relatively close parameter values, i.e. with similar forest-growing conditions, in one spatial unit; development and verification of the rules for combining spatial units with relatively different forest-growing conditions into larger units according to applied silvicultural practices; Improvement of existing and development of new forest typological schemes reflecting changes in climate conditions that can be applied for zones with high levels of anthropogenic impacts; development of silvicultural practices and logging technologies considering classification schemes of forest type dynamics; Genetic studies of the populations that compose forest communities. Genetic forest type classification is based upon the origin (genesis) and development of forests. Therefore, genesis studies of forest communities based on genetic analysis of the populations will become the core theme of the future fundamental research in this area.

Dynamics of the surface air temperature and amount of precipitation in the Polar, Northern, and Southern Urals in the 20th century is analyzed. Charts of the temperature distribution in the Urals for the period from 1961 to 2000, taking into account the relief, are plotted in the geographical informational system on the basis of data of instrumental measurements at meteorological stations with the use of the multiple regression analysis and raster modeling. The northeastern direction of the warming gradient and increase of falling precipitations in the period under review is established. Time series of anomalies of the average annual air temperature and amount of precipitation in the 20th century at three meteorological stations, situated in the Polar, Northern, and Southern Urals, are analyzed. The tendency of the growth of anomalies of the average annual temperature and total amount of precipitation is revealed.

This paper presents results of analyzing the second half of the 20th–early 21st century changes in lateral spatial structure of Larix sibirica Ledeb. population in the upper treeline ecotone located on the Rai-Iz massif (Polar Urals, Russia). The GIS layers characterizing distribution of Siberian larch trees and undergrowth together with their crowns was produced for a 7.32 square kilometer area based on aerial images recognition. Using statistical models, we assessed probabilities for assigning trees to age intervals of 1–10, 11–40, and 40+ years based on the average radius of tree crown projection. These maps and layer showing locations of trees that grew in the upper part of the ecotone, and died during the Little Ice Age, allow for assessing specifics of forest cover proliferation at different parts of upper treeline ecotone, and comparing current location of the trees with one from the past. The proposed method for probability-based recognition of Siberian larch tree generations in the upper treeline ecotone using average crown radius can be used to reconstruct time and spatial forest dynamics at the upper growth boundaries for time spans up to 100 years and more.

Woody vegetation at the upper limit of its growth is a sensitive indicator of climate change. The aim of this study is to provide an analysis of the centuries-old spatiotemporal dynamics of larch trees at the upper limit of their growth (mountain massif Rai-Iz, Polar Urals, Russia). We used a ground-based method of mapping the remnants of trees that grew in the study area and died during the Little Ice Age. Aerial photographs from the 1960s and high-spatial-resolution satellite images from 2015 were used as data sources to define the locations of trees. Maps of the forest–tundra phytocoenochoras (areas of the terrain that are relatively homogeneous for one or more components of vegetation and/or other indicators) were created using a modified method of boundary detection between forest parcels with different stand densities. The proposed method of boundary detection between the main types of phytocoenochoras allowed us to identify a 15% total increase in areas of closed and open forest and areas with sparse tree growth, as well as a decrease in areas of tundra with single trees over these last decades. Using our spatiotemporal analysis of forest–tundra demographics over the last 50 years, we found that the number of trees in the ecotone had doubled. However, modern trees have not yet reached the areas occupied by trees in the past.