Recent topics of our publication in 2020

On behalf of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Forest Research, I am very pleased to announce the following recent topics of our publication.

Special feature

Recently, we have published a special feature entitled “Long-term monitoring and research in Asian university forests: towards further understanding of environmental changes and ecosystem responses”, across two issues (the third and the fourth) of the current volume (Vol. 25). This special feature focuses on the important role of university forests, which have been collecting, managing, and analyzing long-term data of meteorological, hydrological, biological, and geographic information under an organizationally stable observation system.

A total of 12 articles about the latest studies based on long-term monitoring of forest ecosystem in five Asian countries are included in this special feature covering a broad area of forest and environmental sciences; e.g. climatic classification and future prediction, soil conservation service, modeling of stand and individual tree growth, drought response of the plantation species, tree phenology, fluctuation of bark and ambrosia beetle populations, and breeding behavior of birds. We believe that this special feature provides significant findings as the baseline for future adaptive forest management and conservation based on a comprehensive understanding of environmental changes and ecological responses.

I would like to thank Masahiro Takagi, Ph.D., Toshiaki Owari, Ph.D., Biing T. Guan, Ph.D., Sangjun Im, Ph.D., and all the reviewers for editing this special feature.

Invited review and special collection of coppice woodland research

In the current issue (Issue 3, Volume 25), we are publishing an Invited Review entitled “Coppice restoration and conservation: a European perspective” contributed by Dr Peter Buckley who has long been working on ecology and management of European coppice woodlands. Coppicing is one of the traditional methods of forest management mainly for fuelwood production. Recently, however, abandonment or underuse of coppice woodlands after the fuel revolution has become a common issue for the world in terms of deterioration of biodiversity as a “secondary nature”. This Invited Review addresses the current status of European coppices from the viewpoint of biodiversity conservation and provides a perspective for desirable future coppice management based on an intensive review of the relevant studies.

Our partner, Taylor & Francis, provides a Special Collection (a Virtual Special Feature) featuring this Invited Review by Dr Peter Buckley together with six more articles that were previously published in the Journal of Forest Research. This collection showcases the Japanese experience of working with abandoned coppice woodland (also called “Satoyama forest” in Japan) for forest regeneration and biodiversity conservation. This collection also picks up an article entitled “Sprouting capacity of Quercus serrata Thunb. and Quercus acutissima Carruth. after cutting canopy trees in an abandoned coppice forest” by Dinh et al. (Volume 23, Issue 5) which was awarded the Journal of Forest Research Award 2019.

The full text of the Invited Review and the articles of the Special Collection can be free-accessed for one year (until May 2021) and six months (until December 2020), respectively. We hope that as many international readers as possible will share and refer to these excellent papers to make progress in future studies and better management of coppice woodlands.

Impact factor 2019

Our journal raised its Impact Factor to 1.065 for 2019 from 0.777 for 2018. I am most grateful for the authors’ contribution to our journal with their excellent works, and for the reviewers’ precious effort to give valuable comments on manuscripts, as well as the many readers who cite our articles in their own work.

As a result of the significant disruption caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, we are very aware that many researchers would have difficulty in managing their works associated with our peer-review process. Fortunately, even under these circumstances, our journal, including the above projects of special feature and invited review, has been published successfully. We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the efforts of medical staff battling COVID-19.

We, the editors, will continue our best efforts to publish valuable, high-quality articles for our aim, encouraging international communication in forest and forestry sciences. We greatly appreciate your further contributions to the Journal of Forest Research.