Abstract
Managing forests for increased structural complexity as well as
acknowledging them as ‘complex adaptive systems’ has become a paradigm
in modern silviculture. Primary forests usually show greater structural
complexity than managed forests since forest management often aims for
several reasons at less complex but specific structures, e.g. for the
production of desired wood assortments. Therefore, the questionwhy natural forests seem to gravitate towards maximum structural
complexity, at least aboveground, remains. Here we argue that the
consideration of thermodynamic theory in forest ecosystem research holds
great potential for a deeper understanding as to why structural
complexity is beneficial to forests when it comes to evolutionary
adaptation. We bring together several existing theories and highlight
how structural complexity relates to thermodynamic principles and
correspondingly forest productivity, potentially also providing us a
means to quantify forests’ adaptive capacity.