False. In a Prüfer code, the degree of a label is one plus its number of occurrences. Here labels occur once and labels do not occur. Thus the former have degree two and the latter degree one. The decoded tree is the pathwith the evident single-edge interpretation when . Independently, no vertex of a simple tree on vertices can have degree at all. The degree claim in the statement is therefore impossible.
True. Each connected component of a forest is a tree. If the component sizes are , their edge counts are , including isolated vertices as size-one components. Summing gives , hence