--- name: brycewang-stanford/forest-ecology-and-management source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/brycewang-stanford-forest-ecology-and-management@1/SKILL.md source_sha256: 401b25900196 --- # Forest Ecology and Management (forest-ecology-and-management) ## Journal positioning Forest Ecology and Management is Elsevier's outlet for the science of forest ecosystems and how that science informs their management: forest ecology and stand dynamics, silviculture and regeneration, disturbance (fire, wind, insects, pathogens) and restoration, biodiversity and habitat, and carbon, growth, and productivity. Its defining expectation is **sound ecological evidence paired with explicit management relevance** — a study must both advance understanding of how forests function and make clear what its findings mean for managing, restoring, or conserving forested land. A competent forest-ecology paper with no applied or management implication, or a non-forest ecological study, is a poor fit however rigorous. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidance. Before submitting, re-check the live Forest Ecology and Management author instructions and data policy. ## When to trigger - The author names Forest Ecology and Management and wants a fit/framing check for a forest-science paper. - A forest-ecology, silviculture, or disturbance study must be re-framed around its management or restoration implications to fit, or recognized as out of scope. - The author is choosing between this journal, `global-change-biology`, `agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment`, and a general-ecology venue. - The author needs the journal's expectations for ecological rigor coupled to management relevance. ## Scope & topic fit - Forest stand dynamics, regeneration, growth, and productivity across managed and natural forests, including long-term and chronosequence studies. - Silviculture and management interventions: thinning, harvesting systems, planting, species/provenance choice, and their ecological and stand-level consequences. - Disturbance ecology and recovery: fire regimes and fuels, wind and drought damage, insect and pathogen outbreaks, and post-disturbance restoration. - Forest biodiversity, habitat structure, deadwood, and the response of flora and fauna to management or disturbance. - Forest carbon, nutrient, and water dynamics when framed around management or land-use decisions rather than pure biogeochemistry. - Restoration, afforestation/reforestation, and conservation in forested systems with measurable ecological outcomes and management lessons. ## Method & evidence bar - The contribution must rest on **defensible ecological evidence** with a clearly stated **management, restoration, or conservation implication** — not pattern description alone. - Field studies need adequate replication, appropriate experimental or sampling design, and honest treatment of pseudoreplication and site confounding. - Observational and chronosequence work must address space-for-time assumptions, stand-age and site-quality confounds, and representativeness. - Statistical analysis must match the design (mixed/hierarchical models for nested plots, appropriate handling of repeated measures, model selection and validation reported). - Modeling and remote-sensing studies must be calibrated and validated against field measurements with skill metrics and uncertainty, not asserted. - Management recommendations must follow from the evidence presented, with scope and limitations stated; over-generalization from a single site or region must be avoided. ## Structure & house style - Standard Elsevier research-article structure (Introduction, Materials/Study Area, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions); re-check current article types and length on the live guide. - The introduction must motivate both the ecological question and its management context; the discussion must return explicitly to management implications. - Figures and tables should be quantitative and load-bearing: stand/structure data, treatment contrasts, disturbance or recovery trajectories, and model–observation comparisons. - A highlights list and a structured or graphical abstract are commonly expected — re-check current requirements on the live guide. - Study-area description, sampling design, and data-availability statements must let a reader assess representativeness and reproduce the core analysis. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the Elsevier anchors, then cite the current Forest Ecology and Management page you checked. - Search the live site for "Forest Ecology and Management guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier version. - Re-check article types, highlights/abstract format, and word/figure expectations. - Confirm the data-availability/research-data policy and any field-permit or protected-area approvals needed for sampling. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution (CRediT), and AI-use disclosure, and open-access options. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The paper delivers both ecological insight and an explicit management/restoration implication. - [ ] Sampling/experimental design is adequately replicated and free of unaddressed pseudoreplication. - [ ] Chronosequence or space-for-time assumptions and site/stand-age confounds are handled honestly. - [ ] Statistics match the nested/repeated-measures design and are validated. - [ ] Any model or remote-sensing result is calibrated and validated against field data with uncertainty. - [ ] Management recommendations are bounded by the evidence, with limitations stated. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A forest-ecology study with no management, restoration, or conservation relevance. - A non-forest ecological study (grassland, agronomic, or aquatic) outside the journal's focus. - Single-site, single-stand results presented as broadly generalizable without caveats. - Pseudoreplicated or under-designed field study treating subsamples as independent replicates. - Management recommendations not supported by the data, or asserted beyond the study's scope. - Missing study-area/sampling detail or data-availability statement. ## Re-routing decision - Ecosystem carbon/climate-change biology is the dominant framing → `global-change-biology`. - Agroforestry/agroecosystem management without a forest-stand focus → `agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment`. - Large-scale forest carbon/nutrient cycling as the core → `global-biogeochemical-cycles`. - Land–atmosphere flux or canopy micrometeorology dominant → `agricultural-and-forest-meteorology`. - General ecological mechanism without management framing → `functional-ecology` or `ecology-letters`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Forest Ecology and Management [Topic tags] <2–3 closest forest-science topics> [Ecological evidence] [Management relevance] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```