Forest ecosystems play multiple important roles in meeting the habitat needs of different organisms and providing a variety of services to humans. Biodiversity is one of the structural features in dynamic and complex forest ecosystems. One of the most challenging issues in assessing forest ecosystems is understanding the relationship between biodiversity and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on tree diversity of Hyrcanian forests in northern Iran. For this purpose, we analyzed tree diversity in 8 forest sites in different locations from east to west of the Caspian Sea. 15,988 trees were measured in 655 circular permanent sample plots (0.1 ha). A combination of machine learning methods was used for modeling and investigating the relationship between tree diversity and biotic and abiotic factors. Machine learning models included generalized additive models (GAMs), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF) and K-nearest–neighbor (KNN). To determine the most important factors related to tree diversity we used from variables such as the average diameter at breast height (DBH) in the plot, basal area in largest trees (BAL), basal area (BA), number of trees per hectare, tree species, slope, aspect and elevation. A comparison of RMSEs, relative RMSEs, and the coefficients of determination of the different methods, showed that the random forest (RF) method resulted in the best models among all those tested. Based on the results of the RF method, elevation, BA and BAL were recognized as the most influential factors defining variation of tree diversity.

Climate change has significant effects on forest ecosystems around the world. Since tree diameter increment determines forest volume increment and ultimately forest production, an accurate estimate of this variable under future climate change is of great importance for sustainable forest management. In this study, we modeled tree diameter increment under the effects of current and expected future climate change, using multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural networks and linear mixed-effect model in two sites of the Hyrcanian Forest, northern Iran. Using 573 monitoring fixed-area (0.1 ha) plots, we measured and calculated biotic and abiotic factors (i.e., diameter at breast height (DBH), basal area in the largest trees (BAL), basal area (BA), elevation, aspect, slope, precipitation, and temperature). We investigated the effect of climate change in the year 2070 under two reference scenarios; RCP 4.5 (an intermediate scenario) and RCP 8.5 (an extreme scenario) due to the uncertainty caused by the general circulation models. According to the scenarios of climate change, the amount of annual precipitation and temperature during the study period will increase by 12.18 mm and 1.77 °C, respectively. Further, the results showed that the impact of predicted climate change was not very noticeable and the growth at the end of the period decreased by only about 7% annually. The effect of precipitation and temperature on the growth rate, in fact, neutralize each other, and therefore, the growth rate does not change significantly at the end of the period compared to the beginning. Based on the models’ predictions, the MLP model performed better compared to the linear mixed-effect model in predicting tree diameter increment.

Loblolly pine, a native pine species of the southeastern United States, is the most-planted species for commercial timber. Predicting survival of loblolly pine following planting is of great interest to researchers in forestry science as it is closely related to the yield of timber. Data were collected from a region-wide thinning study, where permanent plots, located at 182 sites ranging from central Texas east to Florida and north to Delaware, were established in 1980–1981. One of the main objectives of this study was to investigate the relationship between the survival of loblolly pine trees and several important covariates such as age, thinning types, and physiographic regions, while adjusting for spatial correlation among different sites. We use a semiparametric proportional hazards model to describe the effects of covariates on the survival time, and incorporate the spatial random effects in the model to describe the spatial correlation among different sites. We apply the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate the parameters in the model and conduct simulations to validate the estimation procedure. We also compare the proposed method with existing methods through simulations and discussions. Then we apply the developed method to the large-scale loblolly pine tree survival data and interpret the results. We conclude this article with discussions on the advantages of the proposed method, major findings of data analysis, and directions for future research. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Tree plantations represent an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle and are expected to increase in prevalence during the 21st century. We examined how silvicultural approaches that optimize economic returns in loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations affected the accumulation of C in pools of vegetation, detritus, and mineral soil up to 100 cm across the loblolly pine’s natural range in the southeastern United States. Comparisons of silvicultural treatments included competing vegetation or ‘weed’ control, fertilization, thinning, and varying intensities of silvicultural treatment for 106 experimental plantations and 322 plots. The average age of the sampled plantations was 17 years, and the C stored in vegetation (pine and understory) averaged 82.1 ± 3.0 (±std. error) Mg C ha⁻¹, and 14.3 ± 0.6 Mg C ha⁻¹ in detrital pools (soil organic layers, coarse-woody debris, and soil detritus). Mineral soil C (0–100 cm) averaged 79.8 ± 4.6 Mg C ha⁻¹ across sites. For management effects, thinning reduced vegetation by 35.5 ± 1.2 Mg C ha⁻¹ for all treatment combinations. Weed control and fertilization increased vegetation between 2.3 and 5.7 Mg C ha⁻¹ across treatment combinations, with high intensity silvicultural applications producing greater vegetation C than low intensity (increase of 21.4 ± 1.7 Mg C ha⁻¹). Detrital C pools were negatively affected by thinning where either fertilization or weed control were also applied, and were increased with management intensity. Mineral soil C did not respond to any silvicultural treatments. From these data, we constructed regression models that summarized the C accumulation in detritus and detritus + vegetation in response to independent variables commonly monitored by plantation managers (site index (SI), trees per hectare (TPH) and plantation age (AGE)). The C stored in detritus and vegetation increased on average with AGE and both models included SI and TPH. The detritus model explained less variance (adj. R² = 0.29) than the detritus + vegetation model (adj. R² = 0.87). A general recommendation for managers looking to maximize C storage would be to maintain a high TPH and increase SI, with SI manipulation having a greater relative effect. From the model, we predict that a plantation managed to achieve the average upper third SI (26.8) within our observations, and planted at 1500 TPH, could accumulate ~85 Mg C ha⁻¹ by 12 years of age in detritus and vegetation, an amount greater than the region’s average mineral soil C pool. Notably, SI can be increased using both genetic and silviculture technologies.