Purpose of Review: This paper aims to retrace the most significant management strategies adopted across European beech forests over the last 25 years, highlighting those that are most efficient and promising. We investigate five main topics including forest management, forest models, species mixture, genetic, and regeneration. Recent Findings: European beech is one of the most widespread and important tree species for the European forest sector. In the light of the ongoing climate crisis, understanding the growth dynamics and the response of beech forests to climate change is crucial to identify advantageous management strategies. Ecology, growth, management, distribution, interaction with other species, genetic, and regeneration aspects of European beech were investigated in different geographical areas of Europe. Despite recent researches focusing on climate change issues, how adaptation and mitigation measures can be integrated into silvicultural guidelines to improve the resilience of European beech forests remains unclear. Summary: To answer this question, we collected and reviewed articles about the management of European beech facing climate change, which were published in peer-reviewed journals over the last 25 years. Articles were grouped into five geographic European areas, according to the classification used by the State of Europe’s forests. Obtained articles were further clustered into five main topics: management, mixed forest, modelling, genetic, and regeneration. The review highlighted the importance of using long-term monitoring plots to understand the effect of climate change on the stability of European beech forests, suggesting climate-smart measures that would help these forests adapt to climate change. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Although coppice forests represent a significant part of the European forest area, especially across southern Countries, they received little attention within the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) processes and scenarios, whose guidelines have been mainly designed to high forests and national scale. In order to obtain “tailored” information on the degree of sustainability of coppices on the scale of the stand, we evaluated (i) whether the main coppice management options result in different responses of the SFM indicators, and (ii) the degree to which the considered SFM indicators were appropriate in their application at stand level. The study considered three different management options (Traditional Coppice TC, coppice under Natural Evolution NE, and coppice under Conversion to high forest by means of periodical thinning CO). In each of the 43 plots considered in the study, which covered three different European Forest Types, we applied a set of eighteen “consolidated” SFM indicators, covering all the six SFM Criteria (FOREST EUROPE, 2020) and, additionally, tested other sixteen novel indicators shaped for agamic forests and/or applicable at stand level. Results confirmed that several consolidated indicators related to resources status (Growing stock and Carbon stock), health (Defoliation and Forest damage), and socio-economic functions (Net revenue, Energy and Accessibility) were highly appropriate for evaluating the sustainability of coppice at stand level. In addition, some novel indicators related to resources status (Total above ground tree biomass), health (Stand growth) and protective functions (Overstorey cover and Understorey cover) proved to be highly appropriate and able to support the information obtained by the consolidated ones. As a consequence, a subset of consolidated SFM indicators, complemented with the most appropriate novel ones, may represent a valid option to support the evaluation of coppice sustainability at stand level. An integrated analysis of the SFM indicators showed that NE and CO display significant higher environmental performances as compared with TC. In addition, CO has positive effects also on socio-economic issues, while TC -which is an important cultural heritage and a silvicultural option that may help to keep local communities engaged in forestry – combines high wood harvesting rates with dense understory cover. Overall, each of the three management options showed specific sustainability values; as a consequence, their coexistence at a local scale and in accordance with the specific environmental conditions and the social-economic context, is greatly recommended since it may fulfill a wider array of sustainability issues. © 2021

Masting is a complex mechanism which is mainly driven by a combination of internal plant resources and climatic conditions. While the driving role of climate in masting is being intensively studied, the interplay among climate, seed production, vegetation growth and phenology still needs further investigation. The objectives of this study were to identify the climatic determinants of different levels of seed production and of NDVI-based vegetation growth and phenology in European beech, and to evaluate if exists a trade-off between these two plant processes. To answer these questions, we used a 25-year-long dataset of beech seed production. We exploited the concept of ecological niche assuming that a mast year can be modeled like a species with variable preferences for different resources, which are the underlying annual climatic conditions; we performed an Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA), a presence-only modeling tool conventionally used in zoology and botany, and used seasonal (spring, summer, autumn) Standardized Precipitation-Evaporation Index (SPEI) observations, considering the current year (y−0), and up to one (y−1) and two (y−2) years before the masting event. For analyzing the role of vegetation growth and phenology, we used seasonal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values and associated NDVI-based phenological metrics derived from Landsat imagery. Results indicated the driving role of climate for masting, especially in VHSP years. A moist summer and dry spring at y−2 and a dry summer at y−1 represented the main driving climatic conditions for masting; while a moist spring during the observation year represented the key condition for triggering higher intensities of seed production. Summer NDVI at y−0 and y−1 represented the variables discriminating best between masting and non-masting years and resulted as driven by opposite summer climatic conditions than seed production, thus indicating a trade-off between seed production and vegetation phenology. We concluded that reproduction and vegetation growth act as two different climate-dependent plant responses in beech, in a way that certain conditions through the years promote mast seeding and the opposite conditions favor vegetation growth. The understanding of climate-growth-masting relationships represents indispensable knowledge for providing a holistic view of masting mechanisms and developing adaptive forest management strategies in this species. © 2020