# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Forest ecology and management Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/forest-ecology-and-management/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Forest ecology and management research in the Class of 2026?

Forest ecology research in 2024 centers on carbon sequestration, soil organic carbon, and high-resolution inventory modeling. Key emerging shifts showcase rapid adoption of Sentinel satellite data, XGBoost modeling, and explicit carbon sink assessments, alongside nationwide forest inventory integration and climate-driven species range shift modeling.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Forest ecology and management |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 4,510 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Carbon sequestration, forest inventory, carbon sink, Sentinel satellite data, soil organic carbon |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 35–100 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | Integration of machine learning and remote sensing for above ground biomass estimation through Landsat-9 and field data in temperate forests of the Himalayan region | Shoaib Ahmad Anees, Kaleem Mehmood, Waseem Razzaq Khan, Muhammad Sajjad, Tahani Awad Alahmadi, Sulaiman Ali Alharbi, Mi Luo | Shoaib Ahmad Anees, Mi Luo | The University of Agriculture, Pakistan | Ecological Informatics | 100 | 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2024.102732 |
| 2 | Carbon sequestration potential of tree planting in China | Ling Yao, Tang Liu, Jun Qin, Hou Jiang, Lin Yang, Pete Smith, Xi Chen, Chenghu Zhou, Shilong Piao | Jun Qin, Xi Chen, Shilong Piao | Chinese Academy of Sciences, China | Nature Communications | 76 | 10.1038/s41467-024-52785-6 |
| 3 | Maximizing carbon sequestration potential in Chinese forests through optimal management | Zhen Yu, Shirong Liu, Haikui Li, Jingjing Liang, Weiguo Liu, Shilong Piao, Hanqin Tian, Guoyi Zhou, Chaoqun Lu, Weibin You, Pengsen Sun, Yanli Dong, Stephen Sitch, Evgenios Agathokleous | Zhen Yu, Shirong Liu | Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China | Nature Communications | 73 | 10.1038/s41467-024-47143-5 |
| 4 | Climate-induced tree-mortality pulses are obscured by broad-scale and long-term greening | Yuchao Yan, Shilong Piao, William M Hammond, Anping Chen, Songbai Hong, Hao Xu, Seth M Munson, Ranga B Myneni, Craig D Allen | Shilong Piao, Anping Chen | Peking University, China | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 70 | 10.1038/s41559-024-02372-1 |
| 5 | Characterizing the structural complexity of the Earth’s forests with spaceborne lidar | Tiago de Conto, John Armston, Ralph Dubayah | Ralph Dubayah | University of Maryland, United States | Nature Communications | 69 | 10.1038/s41467-024-52468-2 |
| 6 | SegmentAnyTree: A sensor and platform agnostic deep learning model for tree segmentation using laser scanning data | Maciej Wielgosz, Stefano Puliti, Binbin Xiang, Konrad Schindler, Rasmus Astrup | Maciej Wielgosz | Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Norway | Remote Sensing of Environment | 61 | 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114367 |
| 7 | The global distribution and drivers of wood density and their impact on forest carbon stocks | Lidong Mo, Thomas W Crowther, Daniel S Maynard, Johan van den Hoogen, Haozhi Ma, Lalasia Bialic-Murphy, Jingjing Liang, Sergio de-Miguel, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Peter B Reich, Oliver L Phillips, Meinrad Abegg, Yves C Adou Yao, Giorgio Alberti, Angelica M Almeyda Zambrano, Braulio Vilchez Alvarado, Esteban Alvarez-Dávila, Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Luciana F Alves, Iêda Amaral, Christian Ammer, Clara Antón-Fernández, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Luzmila Arroyo, Valerio Avitabile, Gerardo A Aymard, Timothy R Baker, Radomir Bałazy, Olaf Banki, Jorcely G Barroso, Meredith L Bastian, Jean-Francois Bastin, Luca Birigazzi, Philippe Birnbaum, Robert Bitariho, Pascal Boeckx, Frans Bongers, Coline C F Boonman, Olivier Bouriaud, Pedro H S Brancalion, Susanne Brandl, Francis Q Brearley, Roel Brienen, Eben N Broadbent, Helge Bruelheide, Filippo Bussotti, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Ricardo G César, Goran Cesljar, Robin Chazdon, Han Y H Chen, Chelsea Chisholm, Hyunkook Cho, Emil Cienciala, Connie Clark, David Clark, Gabriel D Colletta, David A Coomes, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, José J Corral-Rivas, Philip M Crim, Jonathan R Cumming, Selvadurai Dayanandan, André L de Gasper, Mathieu Decuyper, Géraldine Derroire, Ben DeVries, Ilija Djordjevic, Jiri Dolezal, Aurélie Dourdain, Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang, Brian J Enquist, Teresa J Eyre, Adandé Belarmain Fandohan, Tom M Fayle, Ted R Feldpausch, Leandro V Ferreira, Leena Finér, Markus Fischer, Christine Fletcher, Lorenzo Frizzera, Javier G P Gamarra, Damiano Gianelle, Henry B Glick, David J Harris, Andrew Hector, Andreas Hemp, Geerten Hengeveld, Bruno Hérault, John L Herbohn, Martin Herold, Peter Hietz, Annika Hillers, Eurídice N Honorio Coronado, Cang Hui, Thomas Ibanez, Nobuo Imai, Andrzej M Jagodziński, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Vivian Kvist Johannsen, Carlos A Joly, Tommaso Jucker, Ilbin Jung, Viktor Karminov, Kuswata Kartawinata, Elizabeth Kearsley, David Kenfack, Deborah K Kennard, Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas, Gunnar Keppel, Mohammed Latif Khan, Timothy J Killeen, Hyun Seok Kim, Kanehiro Kitayama, Michael Köhl, Henn Korjus, Florian Kraxner, Dmitry Kucher, Diana Laarmann, Mait Lang, Simon L Lewis, Yuanzhi Li, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Huicui Lu, Natalia V Lukina, Brian S Maitner, Yadvinder Malhi, Eric Marcon, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Andrew R Marshall, Emanuel H Martin, James K McCarthy, Jorge A Meave, Omar Melo-Cruz, Casimiro Mendoza, Irina Mendoza-Polo, Stanislaw Miscicki, Cory Merow, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Vanessa S Moreno, Sharif A Mukul, Philip Mundhenk, María Guadalupe Nava-Miranda, David Neill, Victor J Neldner, Radovan V Nevenic, Michael R Ngugi, Pascal A Niklaus, Petr Ontikov, Edgar Ortiz-Malavasi, Yude Pan, Alain Paquette, Alexander Parada-Gutierrez, Elena I Parfenova, Minjee Park, Marc Parren, Narayanaswamy Parthasarathy, Pablo L Peri, Sebastian Pfautsch, Nicolas Picard, Maria Teresa F Piedade, Daniel Piotto, Nigel C A Pitman, Lourens Poorter, Axel Dalberg Poulsen, John R Poulsen, Hans Pretzsch, Freddy Ramirez Arevalo, Zorayda Restrepo-Correa, Sarah J Richardson, Mirco Rodeghiero, Samir G Rolim, Anand Roopsind, Francesco Rovero, Ervan Rutishauser, Purabi Saikia, Christian Salas-Eljatib, Philippe Saner, Peter Schall, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Dmitry Schepaschenko, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Bernhard Schmid, Jochen Schöngart, Eric B Searle, Vladimír Seben, Josep M Serra-Diaz, Douglas Sheil, Anatoly Z Shvidenko, Ana Carolina Da Silva, Javier E Silva-Espejo, Marcos Silveira, James Singh, Plinio Sist, Ferry Slik, Bonaventure Sonké, Enio Egon Sosinski, Alexandre F Souza, Krzysztof J Stereńczak, Jens-Christian Svenning, Miroslav Svoboda, Ben Swanepoel, Natalia Targhetta, Nadja Tchebakova, Hans Ter Steege, Raquel Thomas, Elena Tikhonova, Peter M Umunay, Vladimir A Usoltsev, Renato Valencia, Fernando Valladares, Peter M Van Bodegom, Fons van der Plas, Tran Van Do, Michael E van Nuland, Rodolfo M Vasquez, Hans Verbeeck, Helder Viana, Alexander C Vibrans, Simone Vieira, Klaus von Gadow, Hua-Feng Wang, James V Watson, Gijsbert D A Werner, Florian Wittmann, Hannsjoerg Woell, Verginia Wortel, Roderick Zagt, Tomasz Zawiła-Niedźwiecki, Chunyu Zhang, Xiuhai Zhao, Mo Zhou, Zhi-Xin Zhu, Irie C Zo-Bi, Constantin M Zohner | Lidong Mo | ETH Zurich, Switzerland | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 60 | 10.1038/s41559-024-02564-9 |
| 8 | Automated forest inventory: Analysis of high-density airborne LiDAR point clouds with 3D deep learning | Binbin Xiang, Maciej Wielgosz, Theodora Kontogianni, Torben Peters, Stefano Puliti, Rasmus Astrup, Konrad Schindler | Binbin Xiang | ETH Zürich, Switzerland | Remote Sensing of Environment | 53 | 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114078 |
| 9 | Dynamics of nitrogen mineralization and fine root decomposition in sub-tropical Shorea robusta Gaertner f. forests of Central Himalaya, India | Rachita Pandey, Surendra Singh Bargali, Kiran Bargali, Himani Karki, R K Chaturvedi | Surendra Singh Bargali, Rupesh Chaturvedi | Kumaun University, India | The Science of The Total Environment | 52 | 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170896 |
| 10 | A climate-induced tree species bottleneck for forest management in Europe | Johannes Wessely, Franz Essl, Konrad Fiedler, Andreas Gattringer, Bernhard Hülber, Olesia Ignateva, Dietmar Moser, Werner Rammer, Stefan Dullinger, Rupert Seidl | Johannes Wessely | University of Vienna, Austria | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 48 | 10.1038/s41559-024-02406-8 |
| 11 | More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change | Coline C F Boonman, Josep M Serra-Diaz, Selwyn Hoeks, Wen-Yong Guo, Brian J Enquist, Brian Maitner, Yadvinder Malhi, Cory Merow, Robert Buitenwerf, Jens-Christian Svenning | Coline C. F. Boonman | Aarhus University, Denmark | Nature Communications | 46 | 10.1038/s41467-023-44321-9 |
| 12 | Enhanced woody biomass production in a mature temperate forest under elevated CO2 | Richard J. Norby, Neil J. Loader, Carolina Mayoral, Sami Ullah, Giulio Curioni, Andy R. Smith, Michaela K. Reay, Klaske van Wijngaarden, Muhammad Shoaib Amjad, Deanne Brettle, Martha E. Crockatt, Gael Denny, Robert T. Grzesik, R. Liz Hamilton, Kris M. Hart, Iain P. Hartley, Alan G. Jones, Angeliki Kourmouli, Joshua Larsen, Zongbo Shi, Rick Thomas, A. R. MacKenzie | Richard J. Norby, A. R. MacKenzie | University of Birmingham, United Kingdom | Nature Climate Change | 46 | 10.1038/s41558-024-02090-3 |
| 13 | TreeLearn: A deep learning method for segmenting individual trees from ground-based LiDAR forest point clouds | Jonathan Henrich, Jan van Delden, Dominik Seidel, Thomas Kneib, Alexander S. Ecker | Jonathan Henrich | University of Göttingen, Germany | Ecological Informatics | 43 | 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2024.102888 |
| 14 | Improving Forest Above-Ground Biomass Estimation by Integrating Individual Machine Learning Models | Mi Luo, Shoaib Ahmad Anees, Qiuyan Huang, Qin Xin, Zhihao Qin, Jianlong Fan, Guangping Han, Liguo Zhang, Helmi Zulhaidi Mohd Shafri | Qiuyan Huang | Nanning Normal University, China | Forests | 42 | 10.3390/f15060975 |
| 15 | Effects of plant diversity on productivity strengthen over time due to trait-dependent shifts in species overyielding | Liting Zheng, Kathryn E Barry, Nathaly R Guerrero-Ramírez, Dylan Craven, Peter B Reich, Kris Verheyen, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Nico Eisenhauer, Nadia Barsoum, Jürgen Bauhus, Helge Bruelheide, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Jiri Dolezal, Harald Auge, Marina V Fagundes, Olga Ferlian, Sebastian Fiedler, David I Forrester, Gislene Ganade, Tobias Gebauer, Josephine Haase, Peter Hajek, Andy Hector, Bruno Hérault, Dirk Hölscher, Kristin B Hulvey, Bambang Irawan, Hervé Jactel, Julia Koricheva, Holger Kreft, Vojtech Lanta, Jan Leps, Simone Mereu, Christian Messier, Florencia Montagnini, Martin Mörsdorf, Sandra Müller, Bart Muys, Charles A Nock, Alain Paquette, William C Parker, John D Parker, John A Parrotta, Gustavo B Paterno, Michael P Perring, Daniel Piotto, H Wayne Polley, Quentin Ponette, Catherine Potvin, Julius Quosh, Boris Rewald, Douglas L Godbold, Jasper van Ruijven, Rachel J Standish, Artur Stefanski, Leti Sundawati, Jon Urgoiti, Laura J Williams, Brian J Wilsey, Baiyu Yang, Li Zhang, Zhao Zhao, Yongchuan Yang, Hans Sandén, Anne Ebeling, Bernhard Schmid, Markus Fischer, Martyna M Kotowska, Cecilia Palmborg, David Tilman, Enrong Yan, Yann Hautier | Liting Zheng, En‐Rong Yan | East China Normal University, China | Nature Communications | 40 | 10.1038/s41467-024-46355-z |
| 16 | Resilience of genetic diversity in forest trees over the Quaternary | Pascal Milesi, Chedly Kastally, Benjamin Dauphin, Sandra Cervantes, Francesca Bagnoli, Katharina B Budde, Stephen Cavers, Bruno Fady, Patricia Faivre-Rampant, Santiago C González-Martínez, Delphine Grivet, Felix Gugerli, Véronique Jorge, Isabelle Lesur Kupin, Dario I Ojeda, Sanna Olsson, Lars Opgenoorth, Sara Pinosio, Christophe Plomion, Christian Rellstab, Odile Rogier, Simone Scalabrin, Ivan Scotti, Giovanni G Vendramin, Marjana Westergren, Martin Lascoux, Tanja Pyhäjärvi, GenTree Consortium | Pascal Milesi, Martin Lascoux, Tanja Pyhäjärvi | Uppsala University, Sweden | Nature Communications | 40 | 10.1038/s41467-024-52612-y |
| 17 | Forest aging limits future carbon sink in China | Yi Leng, Wei Li, Philippe Ciais, Minxuan Sun, Lei Zhu, Chao Yue, Jinfeng Chang, Yitong Yao, Yuan Zhang, Jiaxin Zhou, Li Zhao, Xuhui Wang, Yi Xi, Shushi Peng | Wei Li | Tsinghua University, China | One Earth | 39 | 10.1016/j.oneear.2024.04.011 |
| 18 | Sub-meter tree height mapping of California using aerial images and LiDAR-informed U-Net model | Fabien Wagner, Sophia Roberts, Alison L. Ritz, Griffin Carter, Ricardo Dalagnol, Samuel Favrichon, Mayumi C. M. Hirye, Martin Brandt, Philippe Ciais, Sassan Saatchi | Fabien Wagner | CTrees, United States | Remote Sensing of Environment | 39 | 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114099 |
| 19 | High-resolution canopy height map in the Landes forest (France) based on GEDI, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2 data with a deep learning approach | Martin A. Schwartz, Philippe Ciais, Catherine Ottlé, Aurelien De Truchis, Cédric Vega, Ibrahim Fayad, Martin Brandt, Rasmus Fensholt, Nicolas Baghdadi, François Morneau, David Morin, Dominique Guyon, Sylvia Dayau, Jean‐Pierre Wigneron | Martin A. Schwartz | Université Paris Saclay, France | International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation | 36 | 10.1016/j.jag.2024.103711 |
| 20 | Vegetation restoration affects soil hydrological processes in typical natural and planted forests on the Loess Plateau | Xiru Liu, Tianjiao Feng, Yufei Zhang, Yabo Liu, Ping Wang | Tianjiao Feng, Ping Wang | Beijing Forestry University, China | Journal of Hydrology | 35 | 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.132465 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The Class of 2026 in forest ecology and management is dominated by quantitative carbon accounting, high-resolution remote sensing, and structural biomass estimation. Carbon sequestration emerges as the most prominent canonical concept (20.0% normalized frequency), accompanied by related carbon dynamics including carbon storage (12.0%), soil organic carbon (12.0%), and carbon sink capacity (12.0%). Concurrently, methodological frameworks for assessing forest inventory (18.0%) and aboveground biomass (10.0%) form the foundational backbone of high-impact research. Remote sensing techniques, particularly those leveraging Sentinel satellite data (12.0%), canopy height models (10.0%), and point cloud LiDAR datasets (8.0%), continue to drive scalable forest monitoring across regional and global scales. Machine learning models like Random Forest (10.0%) and XGBoost (8.0%) are widely deployed for integrating multi-source spatial data with field measurements. Furthermore, climate change mitigation (8.0%) and forest restoration (8.0%) highlight the transition toward actionable ecological interventions, underscoring how modern forest ecology combines earth observation technology with ecosystem-service evaluation.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

Comparing the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026 reveals a significant shift toward operational satellite imagery, multi-source machine learning, and targeted climate resilience metrics. High-gain topics are led by Sentinel satellite data (increasing from 2 to 6 mentions) and explicit carbon sink modeling (rising from 1 to 6 mentions). Newly emerging topics gaining traction in 2024 include Carbon stock (5 mentions), National forest inventory (4 mentions), Species range shifts (4 mentions), and XGBoost algorithms (4 mentions), reflecting a push toward standardized national assessments and advanced predictive modeling. In contrast, several traditional broad descriptors saw relative declines in focus, including general biomass estimation (dropping from 11 to 3 mentions), forest productivity (from 13 to 5 mentions), and forest structural complexity (from 8 to 3 mentions). Rather than signaling reduced interest in these core ecological concepts, the trend points to methodological refinement, where general biomass and canopy profiling have evolved into specific remote-sensing techniques, standardized inventory data processing, and fine-scale carbon accounting.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Forest ecology and management Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/forest-ecology-and-management/2026. Accessed 2026-07-23.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
```