Understanding Biodiversity in Acer Forests: From Species Diversity to Sustainable Conservation

The genus Acer comprises more than 110 tree and shrub species distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and represents an important component of temperate forest ecosystems. This review evaluates biodiversity patterns, ecological functions, environmental pressures, and conservation approaches associated with Acer forests. A systematic literature search conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases on 20 January 2026, without publication-year restrictions. After screening and eligibility assessment, 688 publications were included and analyzed using bibliometric methods and qualitative thematic synthesis. The literature increased substantially over the last four decades, with climate change, biodiversity conservation, forest dynamics, and sustainable management among the principal research themes. The selected studies covered species and genetic diversity, forest composition and dynamics, associated plant, fungal, and animal communities, environmental change, and conservation and management. Native Acer forests were frequently associated with structurally complex habitats, diverse understory communities, nutrient cycling, and multiple ecosystem functions, whereas habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, atmospheric pollution, and biological invasions were identified as major pressures. Introduced species, particularly Acer negundo, were also frequently examined in relation to impacts on native biodiversity. Important research gaps concerned poorly studied endemic species, long-term monitoring, multitrophic interactions, and the effectiveness of conservation measures under environmental change. Future research should integrate ecological, genetic, physiological, and remote-sensing approaches to support evidence-based conservation and sustainable management of Acer forests. This review provides a systematic and bibliometric synthesis of the indexed English-language literature retrieved using the specified search strategy and identifies major research patterns, evidence gaps, and conservation priorities relevant to Acer forests biodiversity under environmental change.