Cover Picture and Issue Information

This issue’s cover image features a 70+ year old red pine ( Pinus resinosa ) stand on the property of the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) located in Pellston, Michigan, USA. Red pine is a coniferous evergreen species native to North America ranging from Newfoundland west to Manitoba, and as far south as Pennsylvania. Red pine is characterized by its tall, straight growth, reaching heights of up to 35 m. In the Great Lakes region of the US, red pine is an important timber species typically grown in monoculture plantations. Naturally occurring red pine stands exist, often growing on areas that have burned previously. Planted red pine stands have characteristically low structural complexity, as demonstrated in this picture where there are no sub‐ or mid‐canopy layers, with a uniform upper‐canopy. Atkins et al. present a taxonomy for characterizing the physical structure of forests, canopy structural complexity (CSC), which describes the arrangement, variance and complexity of canopy elements in space along with an accompanying R package, forestr , that uses light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to calculate CSC metrics. This forest, along with others, served as useful experimental areas for testing and refining this methodology. Photo credit: © J.W. Atkins, Virginia Commonwealth University