Highlights: European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) displayed parabolic elevational trends of the cessation of xylem cell differentiation phases. Xylem phenology and growth rates of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) appeared to be less influenced by the 2018 drought, whereas beech reduced growth on the lowest elevation and fir seemed negatively affected in general. Background: The year 2018 was characterized by multiple drought periods and heat waves during the growing season. Our aim was to understand species-specific responses of xylem phenology and growth to drought and how this effect was modified along an elevational gradient. Materials and Methods: We sampled microcores and increment cores along an elevational gradient in the southwestern Black Forest (SW Germany) region and analyzed xylem phenology and growth response to drought. Results: Termination of cell enlargement and lignification occurred earliest in beech and latest in pine. Beech had the highest growth rates but shortest growth durations, fir achieved moderate rates and medium durations and pine had lowest growth rates despite long growth durations. In contrast to pine, onsets of cell differentiation phases of fir and beech did not show clear linear relationships with elevation. Cessation of cell production and lignification of beech and fir followed a parabolic elevational trend and occurred earliest on low elevations, whereas pine showed no changes with elevation. Tree-ring width, generally, depended 3–4 times more on the growth rate than on growth duration. Conclusions: The possibly drought-induced early cessation of cell differentiation and considerable growth reduction of beech appeared to be most severe on the lowest elevation. In comparison, growth reductions of fir were larger and seemed independent from elevation. We found evidence, that productivity might be severely affected at lower elevations, whereas at high elevations wood production might not equally benefit during global warming.

Quercus brantii is an important tree species in Zagros forests. Summer drought imposes severe limitations in Q. brantii forests, making reforestation with this species in general very difficult. This is further complicated by the limited ecophysiological information for this species. To improve our understanding of factors affecting the drought tolerance of Q. brantii at early critical life stages, we explored the influence of seed size and provenance on the growth and survival of Q. brantii seedlings under drought. As expected, drought reduced growth and survival and increased the root-to-shoot ratio, with larger acorns rendering more vigorous growth than small ones. There was a positive correlation between seed size and root-to-shoot ratio under severe drought stress only for the provenance from the wetter region. Our results indicate that large seeds of Q. brantii from populations with good genetic material can render restoration programs in the Zagros forests more successful.

Cultural ecosystem services, encompassing intangible benefits like spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, and aesthetic experiences, play a crucial role in enhancing individual well-being. Despite their profound impact, these services often face limited economic recognition and marketability, highlighting the importance of improved acknowledgment in future ecosystem assessments. The emergence of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a market-based mechanism offers compensation to landowners for managing their land to deliver various ecosystem services.While PES provides incentives for conservation, challenges such as the lack of market information, participation avoidance, and mistrust hinder its widespread adoption, especially concerning the physical, emotional, and mental benefits derived from ecosystem services. Bridging this gap requires a focus on education and outreach, emphasizing not only the provisioning and regulating ecosystem services but also the cultural ones. PES programs, being information-intensive, demand a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem services and their management impacts.To address these challenges, we propose leveraging social media, specifically through local social media influencers (LSMIs), as online intermediaries in PES initiatives. In the modern world, social media has proven to be a potent solution for boosting awareness, trust, and promotion for various businesses, making it a viable avenue for PES. Unlike traditional offline intermediaries, LSMIs on social media platforms can effectively engage with local communities, fostering awareness and trust-building.Our research focuses on the European context, exploring the role of LSMIs in the preparatory phase of PES programs. Through a literature review, we identified a framework of potential key indicators of social media (SM) and LSMIs. To gain comprehensive perspectives from PES buyers and sellers in online social networks, we conducted a survey involving three PES case studies in Spain, France, and Austria.The findings underscore YouTube and Instagram's popularity as the preferred social media platforms among both buyers and sellers of ecosystem services within the cultural context. Photos and videos emerged as captivating mediums, with more than 50% expressing the affirmative impact of this contemporary tool in advancing cultural ecosystem services. Geographically, Spain led in leveraging social media for the promotion of cultural ecosystem services, followed by France and Austria.By understanding the dynamics between LSMIs, social media platforms, and PES initiation, our research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of social media's role in promoting ecosystem services and sustainable environmental practices.

Trust or Stagnation? Institutions, Social Values, and the Future of Forest Ecosystem Services in EuropeEnvironmental issues are fundamentally societal and cultural, necessitating interdisciplinary approaches to understand how human systems interact with ecological functions. While Europe is a highly forested region with a long history of social–environmental interactions, the adoption of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) remains comparatively limited. This research employs a scenario-based foresight approach to bridge social science and environmental studies, investigating how public funding frameworks can better integrate PES to support forest ecosystem services (ES).The study employs a qualitative methodology grounded in scenario-based foresight. To ensure policy relevance and analytical coherence, a fast-track scenario approach was adopted, drawing on the EU OpenNESS scenario set (Wealth-being, United-we-stand, Eco-center, and Rural Revival) as a foundational framework. Data were generated through horizon scanning, combining literature synthesis with primary expert insights from nine European forest-related case studies. These inputs were analysed using an expanded STEEP-V framework, which explicitly integrates social values alongside social, technological, economic, environmental, and political drivers of change.The findings further highlight that current institutional arrangements—particularly complex administrative procedures, fragmented policy objectives, and rigid funding structures—often discourage participation from forest owners, who do not always act as purely economically rational agents. To explore institutional alternatives, four integration strategies were therefore evaluated: Business-as-Usual, voluntary enhancement of existing funds (Integration+), mandatory enhancement (Integration++), and the creation of a dedicated PES fund. Results indicate that Integration+ is the most robust strategy across all plausible futures, offering flexibility while remaining politically and institutionally feasible.Unlike existing PES studies that focus primarily on ecological effectiveness or site-level implementation challenges, this contribution emphasizes how future social values, institutional design, and funding architectures jointly shape environmental outcomes. Ultimately, it argues that the future of forest ecosystem services depends on the synergy between adaptive policy design and evolving societal stewardship. To enable viable climate action and sustainable land-use pathways, governance systems must move toward administrative simplification and trust-based arrangements that foster a more resilient and constructive relationship between people and the environment.Key words: Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES); Socio-ecological systems; Scenario-based foresight; Institutional innovation; EU funding frameworks.

Indicator frameworks support environmental monitoring and policy reporting, but their uptake in forest management remains constrained when indicators are weakly linked to management decisions, data availability, and operational needs. Within the OptFor-EU project a set of 21 Essential Forest Mitigation Indicators (EFMIs) were co-selected and amended from existing indicator sets to support decision making in climate-smart forest management across Europe. Starting from an initial pool of 130 indicators, an expert screening with regard to mitigation and decarbonisation relevance, sensitivity to forest management practices, and feasibility helped to reduce the amount, followed by a prioritisation through surveys with forest managers and international indicator experts. The final EFMI set extends beyond carbon sequestration to include forest health, climate-change adaptability, biodiversity-supporting structures (e.g. deadwood, stand density, stand age), and regional climate regulation (e.g. soil moisture, temperature, precipitation). Each indicator is documented in standardised factsheets, aligned with the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services and international indicator systems. An open-source and harmonised data backbone integrates pan-European datasets, satellite products, process-based forest models, and regional climate models to each EFMI; all processing code is publicly available. A network analysis shows a system of interconnected EFMIs with carbon stored, wood removals, and stand density acting as central leverage points linking production, biodiversity, damages, and climate-regulation pathways. The EFMIs are operationalised for decision makers in a decision support system to enable indicator selection, weighting, and trade-off analysis across management alternatives and scales, strengthening evidence-based planning and interoperability with forest ecosystem service assessments and policy reporting.