Resilience of temperate forest fragments

What is it about?

Our paper explores patterns of local and regional scale resilience to land-use and climate change in temperate forest fragments. We then identify forest fragments that are important for maintaining resilience because of their connectivity to other forest fragments. We suggest that well-forest fragments that are currently resilient (high functional response diversity) and well-connected should be targeted for conservation, while those that are well-connected but not resilient (low functional response diversity) should be restored using enrichment planting.

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Why is it important?

Our manuscript is important because it translates ecological tools - resilience and functional diversity - into management tools that will allow decision makers to manage forests at regional scales. Moreover, by identifying specific forest patches to target for management, our approach may also be more efficient.