Adaptive Retention Silviculture During the Advancing and Killing Fronts of Beech Bark Disease

American beech remains a foundational late-successional species throughout eastern North America, yet Beech Bark Disease (BBD) continues to restructure northern hardwood forests across its range. This conceptual review synthesizes evidence supporting a framework centered on adaptive retention silviculture during the advancing and killing fronts of disease progression. Rather than arguing that thinning eradicates disease, the paper synthesizes historical and contemporary evidence suggesting that repeated selective thinning may function as a long-term ecological filtering process that preserves canopy continuity, reduces hazard accumulation, and favors vigorous and potentially resistant American beech phenotypes. The review integrates literature concerning stand density, disease ecology, aftermath forests, regeneration dynamics, biodiversity impacts, resistance forestry, and interactions with emerging Beech Leaf Disease (BLD). Collectively, the literature suggests that management actions during the advancing and killing fronts strongly influence future stand trajectories long before classical aftermath conditions emerge. Adaptive retention forestry is therefore interpreted as a resilience and persistence strategy rather than a disease-eradication framework.