Species selection guidelines in reforestation. Ruiz de la Torre’s contributions

Abstract

Reforestation or afforestation is one of the most important management alternatives in ecological restoration. Selecting appropriate species is the main decision of a reforestation project, because the long-term implications of such decision in the management costs and value of the final community are significant. Both, factors and stages of selection process and theoretical concepts of forest restoration models are analyzed. In this paper, we review some of the contributions that Professor Ruiz de la Torre made to the knowing of silvical and ecological characteristics of the major tree species in Spain, and to the understanding of vegetation dynamics.