Overview

Forests are the most important terrestrial ecosystems in the world, providing diverse ecosystem services including food production, biodiversity conservation, sand storm prevention, water and soil conservation, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. It is well known that plants, soil, and microbes in forest ecosystems do not exist in isolation; rather, they are intricately interconnected. Their complex coupling interrelationships are crucial for driving ecological processes and ecosystem functions in forest ecosystems. This reprint presents several new results on plant functional traits, soil nutrient cycling, soil microbial diversity, and plant-soil microbe interactions from the perspective of forest succession, elevation, climate warming, atmospheric N deposition, land use changes, and application of soil microbial inoculants, aiming to promote forest management.