Dear Colleagues,

Heatwaves and severe drought are an increasingly common feature of global climate change. Alone and in combination, these extreme climatic disturbances can strongly impact tree and forest function. At the tree scale, heat and drought can temporarily or permanently alter leaf- and canopy-scale carbon and water fluxes and weaken pathways for water and carbon transport. Maintenance of leaf cooling and hydraulic conductivity can strongly determine tree performance during and after heat and drought events. In some cases, extreme heat and severe drought can trigger mortality of leaves, stems, and entire trees. These severe disturbances can ultimately reduce forest productivity and alter carbon and nutrient cycling, with effects that lag for years or decades. These disturbances could also alter competitive interactions between and within species, leading to changes in forest community structure and composition. Although the impacts of heat and drought are well-recognized, our knowledge of the physiological mechanisms underlying inter- and intraspecific variation in tree responses to heatwaves and drought remains limited. Moreover, the importance of stand characteristics (age, density, genetic composition), management (fertilization, thinning), and the timing, scale, and severity of heat and drought remains understudied in forests in different regions of the globe. These knowledge gaps limit our ability to simulate and project heat and drought impacts on trees and forests over space and time. New knowledge is also needed to inform management decisions that improve forest resistance and resilience to heat and drought.

We invite manuscripts for a Special Issue on Tree and Forest Responses to Heat and Drought. We encourage the submission of manuscripts that provide new information on a broad range of topics, including: 1) mechanistic aspects of tree responses to heat and drought, including recovery; 2) inter- and intraspecific variation in tree responses to heat and drought; 3) heat and/or drought impacts on competitive interactions between trees; 4) interactive effects of heat and/or drought and forest management (e.g., thinning, fertilization); 5) the importance of heat and drought timing, frequency, and severity in different tree species and forest types; and 6) modeling approaches that improve simulations of heat and drought impacts on trees and forests. Suitable manuscripts may include robust observational studies, hypothesis-driven experiments or modeling exercises, and meta-analyses or reviews.

Dr. Michael J Aspinwall
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• carbon cycling
• drought
• forest management
• heatwaves
• photosynthesis
• transpiration
• water use