The ecology and silviculture of oaks

Description

The management of oak forests is essential to the ecosystems of many countries, and current trends in managing forests are based on sustaining desired ecosystems, rather than timber and other commodity outputs. By considering oak forests as responsive ecosystems, this updated new edition draws on the authors' extensive experience in order to examine topics essential to understanding the unique characteristics of oaks and oak forests, covering distribution, ecology and population dynamics, and silvicultural practices for multi-resource management such as creating and sustaining oak savannas, and increasing and measuring acorn production. With new information on carbon sequestration, biofuel production, impacts of climate change, and sudden oak death - a serious and newly discovered pathogen - the book will be essential reading for ecologists, silviculturists, environmentalists, wildlife managers and students in these disciplines.