Forest Ecology

Abstract

A forest is an ecological system (or biotic community) dominated by trees. Ecology is the study of ecological systems and the mutual interactions between organisms and the environment. The primary objective of forest ecology is to understand what controls the patterns of distribution and abundance of different organisms in forests of the world. The relevance of forest ecology to understanding biodiversity lies in the observations that forests dominate the natural landscape over much of the world and that forests harbor a large proportion of the world's species. Moreover, because forests are valuable to humans for the products and services that they provide – especially wood – many forest ecosystems are extensively manipulated and modified by human societies, often disrupting the natural ecological patterns. In addition, many forests occur where climate and soil are suitable for intensive agricultural production and conversion of forests to farms results in radical changes in the composition of the biota. Hence, detailed knowledge of forest ecology is necessary to predict and ameliorate the effects of forest utilization and conversion on biodiversity.