This week is National Tree Week! First celebrated in 1975, National Tree Week is the UK’s largest tree celebration. Each year, The Tree Council’s member organisations including voluntary bodies and local authorities, up to 200 schools and community groups, 8000 Tree Wardens and many others, support the initiative by setting up fun, worthwhile and accessible events, inspiring upward of a quarter of a million people to get their hands dirty and together plant around a million trees.

The theme of this year’s event is encouraging everyone to consider how they can change views for the better by planting and celebrating trees. Across the country, views of the landscape are changing for the worse as more and more trees fall victim to invasive pests and diseases. National Tree Week provides communities with the impetus to fight back by planting the trees of the future and attempting to change the view for future generations.

To celebrate National Tree Week this year, the BES journals have put together a special  Virtual Issue, free to access for a limited time,  highlighting some of the most interesting tree-based research published in our journals over the last few years.

The Virtual Issue includes 5 Journal of Ecology papers:

1. Ma, Z., Chen, H. Y. H. (2016), Effects of species diversity on fine root productivity increase with stand development and associated mechanisms in a boreal forest. Journal of Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12667

2. Fernández-de-Uña, L., McDowell, N. G., Cañellas, I., Gea-Izquierdo, G. (2016), Disentangling the effect of competition, CO2 and climate on intrinsic water-use efficiency and tree growth. Journal of Ecology, 104: 678–690. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12544

3. Hogan, J. A., Zimmerman, J. K., Uriarte, M., Turner, B. L., Thompson, J. (2016), Land-use history augments environment–plant community relationship strength in a Puerto Rican wet forest. Journal of Ecology, 104: 1466–1477. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12608

4. Baker, T. R., Vela Díaz, D. M., Chama Moscoso, V., Navarro, G., Monteagudo, A., Pinto, R., Cangani, K., Fyllas, N. M., Lopez Gonzalez, G., Laurance, W. F., Lewis, S. L., Lloyd, J., ter Steege, H., Terborgh, J. W., Phillips, O. L. (2016), Consistent, small effects of treefall disturbances on the composition and diversity of four Amazonian forests. Journal of Ecology, 104: 497–506. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12529

5. Grossiord, C., Sevanto, S., Adams, H. D., Collins, A. D., Dickman, L. T., McBranch, N., Michaletz, S. T., Stockton, E. A., Vigil, M., McDowell, N. G. (2016), Precipitation, not air temperature, drives functional responses of trees in semi-arid ecosystems. Journal of Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12662

Find out more about National Tree Week on the Tree Council Website, including an article on this year’s activities, and interactive map of events near you, and a free downloadable poster. You can also keep track on what’s going on throughout the festival using the hashtags #NationalTreeWeek, #ChangingViews and #TreeCharter.

We will also have a few tree-based articles appearing on the blog this week so make sure you come back to read those as well!