Silvology

Silvology is the study of forests, and as defined above incorporates understanding of both natural systems and the effects of interventions by man in the form of silviculture.

Silvology is easily distinguished from silviculture provided that science is clearly recognised as focussing on the art and practice of tree management.

Examples of the two disciplines would include:

• a forest engineer studying compaction from forest vehicles (silvology) as opposed to building a forest road (silviculture)


• a geneticist observing heritability for a trait in a field trial (silvology) compared to a forest worker thinning the field trial (silviculture)


• a forest mensurationist recording basal areas (silvology) and the forest manager using basal areas to implement a thinning regime (silviculture)


• a forest economist developing mechanisms for attracting payment for ecosystem services (silvology) as opposed to the forest manager maintaining forest condition to adhere to regulations or grant incentives (silviculture)


• a forest ecologist observing impacts of delayed tree thinning on ground flora (silvology) versus making a forest management decision to delay tree thinning (silviculture).

Scientists working in the biological science of studying forests call themselves silvologists, and refer to their discipline as silvology. The term is particularly helpful within the forestry sector (which by its nature is very broad) by helping separate scientific roles and responsibilities from practical jobs.

Silvology should be applied more widely to university courses, or book and journal titles. Within scientific papers that deal with forest science, silvology could be adopted as a keyword, and this may prove particularly useful where the number of keywords is limited, providing space for detailed keywords for particular elements of study.

Also: silvologist n., silvological, silvologic, silvologous adj.