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The study has piloted to find the Pattern of species distribution along environmental variables and disturbance in Raghunandan Reserve Forest. Shaltila and Shahapur beat of Raghunandan Hill Reserve Forest are situated in Chunarughat sub-district of Habiganj district between 24°5'-24°10' N and 91°25'-91°30' E under the Sylhet Forest Division. The Environmental variable and vegetation data were collected from 30 sample plots from each forest beat by using arbitrary sampling without preconceived bias. 51 species were found from Shaltila and 34 species found in Shahapur forest beat. Thus the dataset continued with total 85 species in 60 samples. To determine the relationships between tree species distribution and environmental variables, Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ordination method were performed separately for two forest beat. In CCA ordination, tree species showed significant variation along environmental gradients in terms of soil organic matter and disturbances (p＜0.05) in the case of Shaltila forest. Potassium has a significant relationship with axis 1 and axis 2 in this forest. But Shahapur forest showed no significant relationship between species and environmental variables. Phosphorus has a significantly negative relationship with axis 2 in this forest. Disturbance played as a critical role of this forest thus influencing the distribution of species. The study showed that the distributions of tree species are strongly influenced by disturbance and organic matter in Shaltila and Shahapur forest beat showed no significant relationship between species and environmental variables. Future research should be included more environmental variables with larger study area that identify the most important environmental forces which will drive by species distribution findings in this forest.

Selection of superior phenotypes of fruit trees and products based on established criteria by local people is a prerequisite for future species domestication and conservation. Thus the study objective was to identify the local people’s perceptions and preferences on baobab trees and products. A sample of 142 respondents was randomly selected using structured interviews in Blue Nile and North Kordofan, Sudan in 2013. Descriptive analysis was employed using SPSS and Excel programs. The study results indicated that local people use the morphological characteristics of the tree (leaves, fruits, seeds, kernels and bark) to differentiate individual trees. Based on the perceptions, local people recorded trees with delicious leaves, white pulp color, big fruit size and mature capsule size, and high pulp yield as criteria for differentiating between baobab trees in the study areas. In contrast, the undesirable traits were connected to trees with acidic pulp, slimy pulp, bitter leaves, and low pulp yield. The study concluded that the ethnobotanical knowledge of the baobab tree and its products may play an important role in tree domestication and improvement in Sudan. However, further research on tree genetics is needed to complement the ethnobotanical knowledge for baobab resources domestication and conservation.

Tropical forests constitute almost half of the global forest cover, account for 35% of the global net primary productivity and thereby have potential to contribute substantially to sequester atmospheric CO2 and offset climate change impact. However, deforestation and degradation lead by unsustainable management of tropical forests contribute to the unprecedented species losses and limit ecosystem services including carbon sequestration. Sustainable forest management (SFM) in the tropics may tackle and rectify such deleterious impacts of anthropogenic disturbances and climatic changes. However, the existing dilemma on the definition of SFM and lack of understanding of how tropical forest sustainability can be achieved lead to increasing debate on whether climate change mitigation initiatives would be successful. We reviewed the available literature with a view to clarify the concept of sustainability and provide with a framework towards the sustainability of tropical forests for enhanced carbon stock and climate change mitigation. We argue that along with securing forest tenure and thereby reducing deforestation, application of reduced impact logging (RIL) and appropriate silvicultural system can enhance tropical forest carbon stock and help mitigate climate change.

This study compared and analyzed the construction of a land use change matrix for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) land use, land use change, and forestry area (LULUCF). We used National Forest Inventory (NFI) permanent sample plots (with a sample intensity of 4 km) and permanent sample plots with 500 m sampling intensity. The land use change matrix was formed using the point sampling method, Level-2 Land Cover Maps, and forest aerial photographs (3rd and 4th series). The land use change matrix using the land cover map indicated that the annual change in area was the highest for forests and cropland; the cropland area decreased over time. We evaluated the uncertainty of the land use change matrix. Our results indicated that the forest land use, which had the most sampling, had the lowest uncertainty, while the grassland and wetlands had the highest uncertainty and the least sampling. The uncertainty was higher for the 4 km sampling intensity than for the 500 m sampling intensity, which indicates the importance of selecting the appropriate sample size when constructing a national land use change matrix.

This study aimed to predict changes in forest area using a probability density function, in order to promote effective forest management in the area north of the civilian control line (known as the Minbuk area) in Korea. Time series analysis (2010 and 2016) of forest area using land cover maps and accessibility expressed by distance covariates (distance from buildings, roads, and civilian control line) was applied to a probability density function. In order to estimate the probability density function, mean and variance were calculated using three methods: area weight (AW), area rate weight (ARW), and sample area change rate weight (SRW). Forest area increases in regions with lower accessibility (i.e., greater distance) from buildings and roads, but no relationship with accessibility from the civilian control line was found. Estimation of forest area change using different distance covariates shows that SRW using distance from buildings provides the most accurate estimation, with around 0.98-fold difference from actual forest area change, and performs well in a Chi-Square test. Furthermore, estimation of forest area until 2028 using SRW and distance from buildings most closely replicates patterns of actual forest area changes, suggesting that estimation of future change could be possible using this method. The method allows investigation of the current status of land cover in the Minbuk area, as well as predictions of future changes in forest area that could be utilized in forest management planning and policymaking in the northern area.

This study was carried out to estimate the parameters of stem taper functions, to figure out the best taper model by species, and to compare with previous studies by species, targeting on the stemmed tree samples collected from the Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora), Korean white pine (Pinus koraiensis), and Japanese larch (Larix kaempferi ) stands in Gangwon and North Gyeongsang provinces of South Korea. The seven widely used models were applied in this study, and Muhairwe 1999 model for Korean red pine and Korean white pine and Kozak 2002 model for Japanese larch were evaluated as the best model for each species according to the fit statistics and the predicted stem form comparison. In addition, the predicted diameter was suitably fitted when comparing the previous studies, and the values were more appropriate following stem taper according to neiloid, paraboloid, and cone parts by species. Consequently, the estimation of this study was considered to represent the stem taper well. When comparing stem taper of three species, the diameter was largest in Korean white pine. Overall, the taper models of this study are judged to be useful for estimating stem form and volume computation of Korean red pine, Korean white pine, and Japanese larch.

As a result of contemporary environmental concerns, a number of studies from plants’ tissues as one of the alternatives to conventional chemicals are increasingly investigated. In tandem with these trends, Lagenaria breviflora (LB) fruit, reputed as antiviral and depilatory agents in the Yoruba folkloric medicine was examined on Vitex doniana wood to ascertain its antifungal activity. Fungicides of 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% LB fruits formulations (concentrations) were developed through simple one-step mechanical-forming process, including control. In this study, the yield, the chemical compositions, the absorption capacity of the fungicides and wood weight losses (WWL) analysis were evaluated to investigate the antifungal activity of LB fruit on wood. The fruit extract yielded 35.4% of fresh juice weight. LB fruits contained total: alkaloids (8.78±0.21 mg/mL), flavonoids (2.01±0.02 mg/mL), phenol (7.42±0.09 mg/mL), saponins (11.00±0.10 mg/mL) and tannins (5.47±0.05 mg/mL) contents. All the formulations provided effective protection against the tested wood fungi compared to control. Interestingly, the antifungal activity of 50% and 25% formulations of 6.8% WWL and 9.9% WWL satisfied the excellent fungal resistance class description against white rot fungus (Ganoderma lucidum) and brown rot fungus (Fibroporia vaillantii), respectively according to ASTM D 2017. These results thus, support LB fruit as a strong potential source of natural antifungals for industrial wood production.

Tropical forests play a key role for functioning of the planet and maintenance of life. These forests support more than half of the world’s species, serve as regulators of global and regional climate, act as carbon sinks and provide valuable ecosystem services. Forest floor biomass and litterfall dynamics was measured in different sites influenced by fire in a seasonally dry tropical forest of Bhoramdeo wildlife sanctuary of Chhattisgarh, India. The forest floor biomass was collected randomly placed quadrats while the litterfall measured by placing stone-block lined denuded quadrat technique. The seasonal mean total forest floor biomass across the fire regimes varied from 2.00-3.65 t ha-1. The total litterfall of the study sites varied from 4.75-7.56 t ha-1 yr-1. Annual turnover of litter varied from 70- 74% and the turnover time between 1.35-1.43 years. Monthly pattern of forest floor biomass indicated that partially decayed litter, wood litter and total forest floor were differed significantly. The seasonal variation showed that leaf fall differed significantly in winter season only among the fire regimes while the wood litter was found non significant in all the season. This study shows that significant variation among the site due to the forest fire. Decomposition is one of the ecological processes critical to the functioning of forest ecosystems. The decomposing wood serves as a saving account of nutrients and organic materials in the forest floor. Across the site, high fire zone was facing much of the deleterious effects on forest floor biomass and litter production. Control on such type of wildfire and anthropogenic ignition could allow the natural recovery processes to enhance biological diversity. Chronic disturbances do not provide time for ecosystem recovery; it needs to be reduced for ecosystem health and maintaining of the high floral and faunal biodiversity.

Since the first report of the oak wilt disease at 2004 in Korea, the disease distributed over Korean peninsula and are still giving severe damages. The management of oak wilt disease in Korea has mainly focused on the control of insect vector, Platypus koryoensis. Neverthless the effective method for evaluating the pathogenicity of the pathogen, Raffaelea quercus-mongolicae (Rqm), and for screening chemical or biological agents with strong inhibitory activity against the pathogen, is absolutely necessary, an reliable method is not available so far. This study was conducted to develop the effective method for evaluating the pathogenicity of Rqm in oak trees. The culture suspensions of Rqm were artificially injected to the saplings of Quercus acutissima by using ChemJet tree injector. Three months after treatments, the treated saplings were cut and dipped into 1% fuchsin acid solution. There were significant differences in non-conductive area (%), discoloration area (%) and vertical discoloration length between the pathogen-injected and distilled water-injected control treatments. These results indicated that the pathogen is the causal agent for the dysfunction of water conductive tissue, which will finally result in wilt symptom. Re-isolation of the pathogen and PCR detection using specific primers for the pathogen also confirmed the presence of Rqm in the sapwood chips of the pathogen-injected saplings. These observations would be greatly applied to other related researches for evaluating the pathogenicity of tree wilt pathogens and biocontrol efficacy of the selected antagonistic microorganisms, in case that the wilt symptom is not easily shown by artificial inoculation of the causal agent.

Agroforestry has been practiced in arid and semi-arid regions for the purposes of preventing desertification and to increase income for locals. However, the intended effects of such practices have been limited due to strong winds and aridity. This study undertook multi-year monitoring of the productivity of income crops associated with windbreak planting in a semi-arid region of Mongolia, and explored strategies of windbreak planning to enhance the multi-purpose effects of agroforestry practices. The tree crown density of windbreak planting was on average 40% in one year after planting and 65% 2-3 years after, and thereby windspeeds were reduced by about 30% and 54%, respectively. Average windspeed reductions at leeward distances from the windbreak planting were approximately 60% within 3H (H=tree height), 50% at 5H, and 42% at 7-9H, presenting a pattern in which the farther the distance the less the reduction in windspeeds. The windbreak planting increased crop productivity by up to 6.8 times, compared to the productivity absent of windbreaks. Increases in the crown density as stated above resulted in increases of crop productivity by up to 3.6 times. Based on such results, this study proposed a model of windbreak planning as a typical land-use system of border windbreak planting or alternate windbreak planting of combining trees and income crops. The model also included tree planting with a crown density of 60% and allocation of income crops within a leeward distance of 5 times the height of the trees to reduce windspeeds by about 50%. The results from this study are applicable to practicing agroforestry not only at the study site but also in other regions worldwide where strong winds and aridity are problematic.

This study was aimed to analyze the increased forestry incomes by combining timber production and wood processing, which is one of 6th industrialization types in Korean forestry. The selected household has been engaged in forestry for two generations and they produce timber and associated wood products in their own facility. The wood products include dimension lumber, interior wood material, cutting board, and cube chips, the household also utilize logging and sawmill residues as well as seed and seedlings as by-products. Incomes and expenses that have been incurred on individual processes of the sequential timber production and wood processing were surveyed, and we analyzed the economic outcomes of entire business. The results of this study indicate that the gross income of the household is 122.3 million Korean won and the net income is 93.6 million Korean won. The net income of the household is approximately 2.8 times higher than the average net income of whole households in the forestry of Korea in 2016, which is approximately 4.3 times higher than that of households that have been particularly engaged in timber production over the country. We found that the 6th industrialization by combining the two sequential processes creates approximately 3.2 times as much added value compared to the case relying on timber production only.