The Role of Mixed Forests in a Changing Social-Ecological World

Abstract

There is a growing attention to mixed forests in the world. Their capacity to cope with mitigation and adaptation to climate change by increasing resilience and lowering risks is pinpointed as an opportunity to highlight the role of tree species-rich forests as part of complex socio-ecological systems. However, analyses of the performance of mixed forests are hampered so far by the lack of a reference definition of mixed forest and the multiple species- and site-specific cases that lead to incomplete knowledge in the delivery of ecosystem services as compared with pure stands. Here, a proposal of definition of mixed forests is discussed along with the performance of mixed forests in the context of the delivery of selected ecosystem services. It is stressed that the analysis of the interaction between structure and functioning and the constraints imposed by changing bio-geophysical conditions is a key issue to fulfill the increasing demand of ecosystem services and the challenge of policy decisions that might affect forest systems (e.g., the transition to bio-economy). Opportunities for forest managers and researchers are highlighted accordingly.