Plants serve as the basis for ecosystems and provide a wide range of essential ecological, environmental, and economic benefits. However, forest plants and other forest systems are constantly threatened by degradation and extinction, mainly due to misuse and exhaustion. Therefore, sustainable forest management (SFM) is paramount, especially in the wake of global climate change and other challenges. SFM ensures the continued provision of plants and forests to both the present and future generations. In practice, SFM faces challenges in balancing the use and conservation of forests. This review discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning (DL) technologies in sustainable forest management. It summarizes current research and technological improvements implemented in sustainable forest management using AI, discussing their applications, such as predictive analytics and modeling techniques that enable accurate forecasting of forest dynamics in carbon sequestration, species distribution, and ecosystem conditions. Additionally, it explores how AI-powered decision support systems facilitate forest adaptive management strategies by integrating real-time data in the form of images or videos. The review manuscript also highlights limitations incurred by AI, ML, and DL in combating challenges in sustainable forest management, providing acceptable solutions to these problems. It concludes by providing future perspectives and the immense potential of AI, ML, and DL in modernizing SFM. Nonetheless, a great deal of research has already shed much light on this topic, this review bridges the knowledge gap.

Background: Liriodendron chinense is susceptible to extinction due to the increasing severity of abiotic stresses resulting from global climate change, consequently impacting its growth, development, and geographic distribution. However, the L. chinense remains pivotal in both socio-economic and ecological realms. The LRR-RLK (leucine-rich repeat receptor-like protein kinase) genes, constituting a substantial cluster of receptor-like kinases in plants, are crucial for plant growth and stress regulation and are unexplored in the L. chinense. Result: 233 LchiLRR-RLK genes were discovered, unevenly distributed across 17 chromosomes and 24 contigs. Among these, 67 pairs of paralogous genes demonstrated gene linkages, facilitating the expansion of the LchiLRR-RLK gene family through tandem (35.82%) and segmental (64.18%) duplications. The synonymous and nonsynonymous ratios showed that the LchiLRR-RLK genes underwent a purifying or stabilizing selection during evolution. Investigations in the conserved domain and protein structures revealed that the LchiLRR-RLKs are highly conserved, carrying conserved protein kinase and leucine-rich repeat-like domians that promote clustering in different groups implicating gene evolutionary conservation. A deeper analysis of LchiLRR-RLK full protein sequences phylogeny showed 13 groups with a common ancestor protein. Interspecies gene collinearity showed more orthologous gene pairs between L. chinense and P. trichocarpa, suggesting various similar biological functions between the two plant species. Analysis of the functional roles of the LchiLRR-RLK genes using the qPCR demonstrated that they are involved in cold, heat, and salt stress regulation, especially, members of subgroups VIII, III, and Xa. Conclusion: Conclusively, the LRR-RLK genes are conserved in L. chinense and function to regulate the temperature and salt stresses, and this research provides new insights into understanding LchiLRR-RLK genes and their regulatory effects in abiotic stresses.

Genome sequencing is widely recognized as a fundamental pillar in genetic research and legal studies of biological phenomena, providing essential insights for genetic investigations and legal analyses of biological events. The field of genome sequencing has experienced significant progress due to rapid improvements in scientific and technological developments. These advancements encompass not only significant improvements in the speed and quality of sequencing but also provide an unparalleled opportunity to explore the subtle complexities of genomes, particularly in the context of rare species. Such a wide range of possibilities has successfully supported the validation of plant gene functions and the refinement of precision breeding methodologies. This expanded scope now includes a comprehensive exploration of the current state and conservation efforts of gymnosperm gene sequencing, offering invaluable insights into their genomic landscapes. This comprehensive review elucidates the trajectory of development and the diverse applications of genome sequencing. It encompasses various domains, including crop breeding, responses to abiotic stress, species evolutionary dynamics, biodiversity, and the unique challenges faced in the conservation and utilization of gymnosperms. It highlights both ongoing challenges and the unveiling of forthcoming developmental trajectories.

Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) phosphorylate downstream target proteins in response to signals transmitted by free calcium ions (Ca2+, one of the second messengers) and thus play important regulatory roles in many biological processes, such as plant growth, development, and stress response. A bioinformatic analysis, as well as thorough evolutionary and expression investigations, were conducted to confirm previous reports of functional evidence for plant CDPKs. Using the Phytozome database’s BLAST search engine and the HMM search tool in TBtools software, we discovered that CDPKs are well conserved from green algae to flowering angiosperms in various gene family sizes. Additional investigations of the obtained CDPKs revealed high conservation of domain and motif numbers, gene architectures, and patterns. However, this conservation differed among plant species. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the CDPK gene family diverged from a common ancient gene. Similarly, investigations into plant interspecies evolutionary relationships revealed common ancestral plant species, suggesting speciation of plants and evolution based on plant adaptation and diversification. A search for the driving force of CDPK gene family expansion revealed that dispersed duplication events, among other duplication events, contributed largely to CDPK gene family expansion. Gene localization analysis in P. trichocarpa demonstrated that most CDPK genes are localized within several cell organelles and bind other kinases and proteins to perform their biological functions efficiently. Using RNA-seq data and qPCR analyses, we postulated that PtCDPKs play functional roles in abiotic stress responses by regulating cold, heat, drought and salt stress to varying extents. The CDPK genes are well conserved in plants and are critical entities in abiotic stress regulation, and further exploration and manipulation of these genes in the future may provide solutions to some of the challenges in agriculture, forestry and food security.

Changes in climate and environmental conditions have aggravated the severity and unpredictability of plant survival and growth. Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook. is an economically important timber tree. Exploring its potential distribution and dynamic changes and identifying the leading environmental variables affecting it will help to adjust the planting range reasonably according to the habits and climate change, thus contributing to its survival and growth. Based on the MaxEnt model and ArcGIS tool, climate, soil, terrain, human activities, variable environment layers, and 395 C. lanceolata distribution points were used to simulate and analyze the geographical distribution characteristics of C. lanceolata in the current and future periods (the 2050s and 2070s) under RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5. The results showed that C. lanceolata was suitable to grow in a subtropical monsoon climate with warm, humid, abundant rainfall and a relatively gentle topography. Additionally, using percent contribution, permutation importance, and the knife-cutting test, we noted that the annual precipitation (Bio12), human activities (Hfp), minimum temperature of the coldest month (Bio6), mean temperature of the coldest quarter (Bio11), precipitation of coldest quarter (Bio19), annual temperature range (Bio7), and elevation were the leading environmental factors affecting the geographical distribution of C. lanceolata. Among them, it should be noted that the impact of human activities was negatively correlated with suitable habitat areas of C. lanceolata and led to the degeneration of suitable habitats and fragmentized distribution. In addition, predictions have shown that the areas of habitats under other scenarios will be characterized by an increasing and then decreasing trend by the 2050s and 2070s, except for the RCP2.6 scenario, under which the suitable habitats area of C. lanceolata will increase continuously. The core distributional shifts showed that the suitable habitats of C. lanceolata will gradually shift and migrate to high-latitude areas due to global warming. This study focused on the characteristics of suitable habitats of C. lanceolata under different climatic scenarios using more environmental factors and scenarios than before, aiming to provide a theoretical basis and guidance for the management and utilization of forest resources, the planning of suitable planting areas, and germplasm protection.