Dear Colleagues,

On the Earth’s land surface, forests have been estimated to occupy more than 4 billion hectares. Forests perform a great number of functions both as a natural formation and as a product of skilful human activity. Forest ecosystem consists of organisms (plants, animals and micro-organisms) and their habitats (the soil and air). The functioning of forest ecosystems is characterized by energy flow and nutrient cycling, biomass production and the decomposition of dead organic matter via microbes. Micro-organisms play important roles in regulating ecosystem processes ranging from nutrient cycling to soil carbon storage, fluxes, transformation of aqueous solutes and processing of water pollutants. Human activities are part of the ecosystem dynamics and human perceptions of forests are changing. Forests contain 80% of all aboveground carbon and approximately 40% of all belowground carbon, which plays an important role in terrestrial functions. In addition, a large amount of mineral nutrients in forest soils sustain forest growth and regeneration. In recent years, human activities have changed the structure and functioning of forest ecosystems in most of the region of world. While deforestation and conversion to agricultural land are the most visible threats to forests worldwide. These systems are also increasingly exposed to atmospheric nutrient decomposition and climate change. The three main functions performed by a forest ecosystem are protective, productive and social. Forest structure is both a product and drivers of ecosystem processes and biological diversity. It has become apparent in recent years that changes in forest structure as a result of management or disturbances have undesirable consequences for other components of forest ecosystems and humankind.

Therefore, this special issue is devoted to ‘Structure and Functioning of Forest Ecosystems’. We encourage studies on structure and functioning of forest ecosystems from a wide range of geographical settings. This issue specially will try to seek out studies which explore various aspects of forest ecosystems. The article published in this issue will try to stimulate more and wide discussions about the manifold interactions in forests and their ecosystems that influence the products and services on which people rely, role of natural and human disturbances in changing the forest ecosystems and strategies to improve the forest health.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include the following:

·        Forest structure and functioning

·        Climate change and forest

·        Role of biotic and abiotic factors on forest ecosystem

·        Carbon sequestration

·        Determining the level of forest ecosystems vulnerability to environmental hazards

·        Developing new approaches to support risk and vulnerability assessment in forest ecosystems

·        Relationship between forests and agroecosystems

·        Predicting the future species distributions and vulnerability of forest ecosystems to climate change scenarios

Looking forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Surendra Singh Bargali

Dr. Kiran Bargali

Dr. Kapil Khulbe

Dr. Manoj Kumar Jhariya

Guest Editor