To understand time‐lag dynamics in the response of biodiversity to contemporary environmental changes (e.g. macroclimate warming and atmospheric pollution), we need to consider former anthropogenic forcing factors such as past land uses and management practices that can have both compounding and confounding effects. This is especially true in European temperate forests, where legacies from past human activities have left strong imprints on today’s understorey plant species composition, generating long‐term lagging effects which can be mistakenly attributed to more recent macro‐environmental changes. By combining the expertise of plant, soil and historical ecologists together with remote sensing scientists, we review the potential of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to unveil ghosts from the past in terms of former land uses and management practices. We show that imprints from past land uses and management practices can still be captured today through well‐chosen LiDAR‐derived variables describing, at sub‐decimetre scale, the vertical and horizontal micro‐variations of vegetation and terrain structure hidden below treetops. Synthesis. We encourage plant and soil ecologists to use LiDAR data and to work with historians, archaeologists and remote sensing scientists in order to select meaningful LiDAR‐derived variables to account for time‐lagged biotic responses to long‐term macro‐environmental changes.

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Unveil the unseen: Using LiDAR to capture time‐lag dynamics in the herbaceous layer of European temperate forests

The socio-ecological legacies of centuries-old charcoal making practices in a mountain forest of the northern Pyrenees

Anthracology: Charcoal Science in Archaeology and Palaeoecology

La forge à la catalane dans les Pyrénées ariégeoises : Une industrie à la montagne (XVIIe –XIXe siècle)

Dendrochronology improves understanding of the charcoal production history, increasing the tourist potential in the Drahany Highlands

High resolution reconstruction of modern charcoal production kilns: an integrated approach combining dendrochronology, micromorphology and anthracology in the French Pyrenees

Léonel Fouédjeu

Papers

High resolution reconstruction of modern charcoal production kilns: an integrated approach combining dendrochronology, micromorphology and anthracology in the French Pyrenees

The socio-ecological legacies of centuries-old charcoal making practices in a mountain forest of the northern Pyrenees

Did the charcoal-based iron industry really drive the forest cover decline in the Northern Pyrenees?