SPECIAL FEATURE: PREFACE A trial of revegetation practices with larch species under changing environment Takayoshi Koike Published online: 16 June 2009 Ó International Consortium of Landscape and Ecological Engineering and Springer 2009 Larch is a deciduous conifer species and a suitable candi- date for reforestation after wood harvesting and the reha- bilitation of degraded areas in northeastern Asia, including intensive economic development regions (Gower and Richards 1990; Ryu et al. 2009). In the northern part of Japan, the Hokkaido Prefectural Government decided at the G8 summit in 2008 to use a new hybrid larch, i.e., ‘‘clean larch,’’ for the memorial plantations. On this occasion, we again started to use larch (genus Larix) as a candidate species for forest rehabilitation, revegetation, and restora- tion of forests. Of course, this trend has influenced the strategy of vegetation management and timber production in northeast China because of the new policy of forest management effective since 2000 (Zhang et al. 2000). Moreover, there are many forest fires in Far East Russia and its vicinity, including Japan. Consequently, we expect natural regeneration of larch after these disturbances (Makoto et al. 2007, Zyryanova et al. 2007). Here I synthesize the topic of ‘‘A trial of revegetation practices with larch species under changing environment.’’ The structure of this special issue is based on a review of physiological ecology of larch species in relation to global climate change (Ryu et al. 2009) and six more research papers. Explicitly we study: (i) the germination of larch and pine as affected by the existence of charcoal, which is a product of forest fires (Choi et al. 2009), (ii) the root and shoot growth of two species of larch seedlings grown under different temperature regimes (Qu et al. 2009), (iii) forest rehabilitation practices in harsh environment under serpentine soil condition (Kayama et al. 2009), (iv) micro- climate changes after timber harvesting in a larch plantation (Kitaoka et al. 2009), (v) biodiversity in the forest floor of a larch plantation with emphasis on the ecophysiological aspects of nitrogen use traits of about 80 species (Wang et al. 2009), and (vi) dynamics of soil respiration of two light- demanding tree species: alder and larch (Kim et al. 2009). The contributed papers describe research on the frontier of the field of forest rehabilitation and conservation biology in Northeast Asia. Based on the knowledge acquired from these research topics, we propose that larch is one of the most suitable candidate species for forest rehabilitation practices in cool temperate regions. We thank the anonymous reviewers of each manuscript and the editorial office of Landscape and Ecological Engineering for giving us this contribution to the research field of forest rehabilitation. References Choi D, Makoto K, Quoreshi AM, Qu L (2009) Seed germination and seedling physiology of Larix kaempferi and Pinus densiflora in seedbeds with charcoal and elevated CO 2 . Landsc Ecol Eng. doi:10.1007/s11355-009-0072-9 Gower ST, Richards JH (1990) Larches: deciduous conifers in an evergreen world. Bioscience 40:818–826 Kayama M, Makoto K, Nomura M, Satoh F, Koike T (2009) Nutrient dynamics and carbon partitioning in larch seedlings (Larix kaempferi) regenerated on serpentine soil in northern Japan. Landsc Ecol Eng. doi:10.1007/s11355-009-0069-4 Kim YS, Yi MJ, Lee YY, Makoto K, Son Y (2009) Estimation of carbon storage, carbon inputs, and soil CO 2 efflux of alder plantations on granite soil in central Korea: a comparison with Japanese larch plantation. Landsc Ecol Eng. doi:10.1007/ s11355-008-0056-01 Kitaoka S, Watanabe M, Watanabe Y, Kayama M, Nomura M, Sasa K (2009) Growth of regenerated tree seedlings associated with T. Koike (&) Silviculture and Forest Ecological Studies, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-8589, Japan e-mail: tkoike@for.agr.hokudai.ac.jp 123 Landscape Ecol Eng (2009) 5:97–98 DOI 10.1007/s11355-009-0075-6