Will more tree diversity bring back more income from timber? A case study from Alabama of USA

At a large scale the diversity of tree species in forests lead to high productivity and multiple ecosystem services. However, from a small forest landowner’s perspective, it is not clear whether more diversity of tree species will bring back more potential income from timber sales. In this study, a case study was conducted at a mixed southern pine and hardwood forest near Birmingham, Alabama, USA. The results indicated that more tree species in a secondary natural forest would not necessarily contribute to more potential timber income at the local scale. The total timber value is strongly correlated to sawtimber value. There is a positive relationship between total basal area at each plot and total timber value. The results provide important information for small forest landowners and forest management for biodiversity conservation in the southern region of USA. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.