Genetic and Morphological Variation in Forest Trees and Impacts on Forest Ecosystems
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecophysiology and Biology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 384
Special Issue Editor
Interests: genes-to-ecosystems; ecological restoration; riparian forests; temperate rainforests; disturbance ecology; volcano ecology; community ecology; carbon and water cycling; nutrient cycles; tree root production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Intraspecific variation in forest tree species can have wide-ranging impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function, since trees are foundation species providing habitat, food, and ecosystem services (carbon uptake, nutrient cycling, climate water filtration, transpiration, and hydrologic buffering) for a wide variety of organisms in managed and unmanaged ecosystems worldwide. Historically, trait variation in forest trees has been addressed at the interspecific (among species) scale, but the intraspecific (within-species) scale is equally important. Recent developments in the fields of ecological genetics, ecological genomics, and community and ecosystem genetics have highlighted the importance of a genetic perspective in understanding forest ecosystems. Experiments from a diverse array of forest ecosystems have now demonstrated that even a slight variation in chemical and morphological traits of trees can have large impacts on communities, and ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and water-use. Further, genetic-based effects of forest trees on ecosystems may feed back to individual trees themselves, with implications for evolution.
In this Special Issue, we explore the state of knowledge on intraspecific and genetic variation in dominant forest trees, and the meaning of this variation for forest ecosystems. The issue will address wide-ranging questions such as: How variable are dominant forest trees within species? When traits are highly variable, how much variability can be attributed to genetic factors? How does variation in different traits (e.g., phenology, chemistry, morphology) compare within a species? How can intraspecific variation be modeled at the landscape scale? What are the implications of this variability for communities, ecosystems, evolution, and conservation? Finally, how might we predict and model genetic and morphological responses of forest trees to climate change?
Dr. Dylan Fischer
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- ecological genetics
- genes to ecosystems
- trait variation
- genomics
- traits
- plant phenotype
- ecosystem genetics
- forest genetics
- ecosystem evolution
- community evolution
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