Drivers of changing forest dynamics in Europe

Description

Europe’s forests are complex socioecological systems, which are increasingly becoming subject to increased stress as a result of climate change. Recent analyses have shown increasing trends in canopy mortality across Europe’s forests. Combining modelling and pan-European analyses of forest inventory
data, we investigate some of the potential drivers of changing mortality rates across Europe. Employing a dynamic vegetation model with a detailed treatment of forest management, we found that the increasing trend in mortality over the period 1985-2010 could be largely explained by an acceleration of socioecological forest dynamics, with environmental change driving an acceleration of tree growth requiring an increased rate of managed thinning. The pre-eminence of harvest as the primary form of tree death across the continent was supported by an analysis of causes of loss in forest inventory data covering a wide transect of Europe from Mediterranean to Boreal. However, despite the strong effect of management, inventory data shows evidence of shifts in the balance of mortality and growth for several species along their ranges, indicative of an increasingly pervasive role of climate change. Incorporating the power of big data from inventories into vegetation models will facilitate exploring ongoing shifts in the dynamics of Europe’s forests.

Period	2022 May 17
Event title	Swedish Climate Symposium 2022
Event type	Conference
Location	Norrköping, SwedenShow on map