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.

The present study introduces an exploratory data analysis based on structural indicators with the aim to assess the effect of silvicultural practices on tree stand structure. The study was carried out in three Italian beech forests of different ages with stand structures that originated from dissimilar regeneration and cultivation techniques (Cansiglio, northern Italy, Chiarano, central Italy, and Mongiana, southern Italy). Ten structural indicators were considered when investigating the latent multivariate relationship between stand structure attributes before and after thinning operations by using a multiway factor analysis (MFA). The MFA results identified the older stand at Cansiglio as more homogeneous for cultivation regimes, and more stable to practices when compared with the younger sites (Chiarano and Mongiana). Heterogeneous stands were sensitive to silvicultural practice thus suggesting their possible impact on forest attributes. The proposed approach proved to be an operational tool to evaluate comprehensively the response of forest structure to planned interventions. © 2018, Northeast Forestry University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

In young black pine plantations, the most valuable and interesting thinning scheme is mainly based on the positive selection of dominant and well-shaped trees to be candidates for carbon sequestration, timber production and natural regeneration. The mechanical stability of candidate trees is here a fundamental skill that must be taken into account and the slenderness ratio (HD) is one of the main indicators. HD has been recently proved to be correlated to the living whorl number (LWN) by Cantiani & Chiavetta (2015). In this study, the statistical model was re-calibrated in order to study the influence of soil fertility on the HD - Living whorls number (LWN) relationship. The fertility-balanced models estimated a different LWN threshold. The model for the highest fertility class (Site index 24) estimated 12 LWN (RMSE of 20%). Similarly, a lower value were detected for the other two fertility classes, SI20 and SI16, where 10 LWN were considered enough with an associated RMSE of 16% and 17% respectively. Compared to the general model provided by Cantiani & Chiavetta (11 LWN with 18% of RMSE) the site index approach improved the accuracy and reliability.

As population will reach over 9 billion by 2050, interest in the forest-food nexus is rising. Forests play an important role in food production and nutrition. Forests can provide nutritionally-balanced diets, woodfuel for cooking and a broad set of ecosystem services. A large body of evidence recommends multi-functional and integrated landscape approaches to reimagine forestry and agriculture systems. Here, after an in-depth commented discussion of the literature produced in the last decade about the role for forests with respect to the food security global emergency, we summarize the state of the art in Italy as a country-case-study. This commentary aims to increase awareness about the potential of silviculture in Italy for combining ecological resilience with economic resilience, and for reasonably increasing non-wood products supply by means of a sustainable intensification of forest management at national level. Chain-supply fragmentation, landowner inertia, and lack of governance and cooperation may hamper an effective exploitation of non-wood products. The strategies to guarantee an effective supply of non-wood products require appropriate business skills and the presence of a structured business service. A transparent market is also essential; therefore, the introduction of standards (e.g. grading rules and forest certification schemes) is important since they can add value to products and services, and emphasize the importance and complexity of the forest sector. However, the implementation of sustainable forest management for an effective supply of non-wood products is affected by the availability of appropriate planning tools, and the public officers need a new mindset to stimulate and support the business capacity of forest owners.