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Forests
Special Issues
Forest Resilience and Resistance to Climate Change
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Forest Resilience and Resistance to Climate Change

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Meteorology and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (3 March 2023) | Viewed by 5482

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Antonio Gazol

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: diversity; forest ecology; functional divesrity; plant community; tree growth
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ester González-de-Andrés

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), 50059 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: forest ecology; global change; drought resilience; forest decline; dendroecology; ecological stoichiometry; intraspecific variability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Projected increases in global temperatures, and associated rises in evaporative demand, can result in the occurrence of more severe extreme climate events such as droughts and heat waves. Tree growth in many regions will be impaired, thus compromising the carbon sink capacity of forests along with other valuable ecosystem services around the world. Improving our knowledge of the resistance and resilience capacity of forests against climate change is thus fundamental to advance in our understanding of how forests will face a warmer and potentially drier climate.

This Special Issue aims to give an overview of the most recent advances in the investigation of the impacts of climate change on tree growth and forest productivity. We welcome contributions showing, from different perspectives and across disciplines, how forests respond to extreme events such as droughts, heat waves, and floods across biomes. We are particularly interested in contributions on advances in the biotic and abiotic factors that modulate the resistance and resilience capacity of forests to climate change.

Our aim is to advance in the following questions:

  • How can forest resistance and resilience to climate change be estimated?
  • How do forest resistance and resilience vary across regions?
  • Which factors modulate forest resistance and resilience at different scales?

Dr. Antonio Gazol
Dr. Ester González-de-Andrés
Guest Editors

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.

Keywords

  • climate change
  • canopy activity
  • defoliation
  • dendrochronology
  • drought
  • heat wave
  • resilience
  • satellite imagery
  • tree growth

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 4824 KiB  
Article
Modeling Climate Change Effects on the Distribution of Oak Forests with Machine Learning
by Hengameh Mirhashemi, Mehdi Heydari, Omid Karami, Kourosh Ahmadi and Amir Mosavi
Forests 2023, 14(3), 469; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14030469 - 24 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2296
Abstract
The present study models the effect of climate change on the distribution of Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) in the Zagros forests, located in the west of Iran. The modeling is conducted under the current and future climatic conditions by fitting the [...] Read more.
The present study models the effect of climate change on the distribution of Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) in the Zagros forests, located in the west of Iran. The modeling is conducted under the current and future climatic conditions by fitting the machine learning method of the Bayesian additive regression tree (BART). For the anticipation of the potential habitats for the Persian oak, two general circulation models (GCMs) of CCSM4 and HADGEM2-ES under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) of 2.6 and 8.5 for 2050 and 2070 are used. The mean temperature (MT) of the wettest quarter (bio8), solar radiation, slope and precipitation of the wettest month (bio13) are respectively reported as the most important variables in the modeling. The results indicate that the suitable habitat of Persian oak will significantly decrease in the future under both climate change scenarios as much as 75.06% by 2070. The proposed study brings insight into the current condition and further projects the future conditions of the local forests for proper management and protection of endangered ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Resilience and Resistance to Climate Change)
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17 pages, 1700 KiB  
Article
Different Taxonomic and Functional Indices Complement the Understanding of Herb-Layer Community Assembly Patterns in a Southern-Limit Temperate Forest
by Mercedes Valerio, Antonio Gazol, Javier Puy and Ricardo Ibáñez
Forests 2022, 13(9), 1434; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13091434 - 07 Sep 2022
Viewed by 1281
Abstract
The efficient conservation of vulnerable ecosystems in the face of global change requires a complete understanding of how plant communities respond to various environmental factors. We aim to demonstrate that a combined use of different approaches, traits, and indices representing each of the [...] Read more.
The efficient conservation of vulnerable ecosystems in the face of global change requires a complete understanding of how plant communities respond to various environmental factors. We aim to demonstrate that a combined use of different approaches, traits, and indices representing each of the taxonomic and functional characteristics of plant communities will give complementary information on the factors driving vegetation assembly patterns. We analyzed variation across an environmental gradient in taxonomic and functional composition, richness, and diversity of the herb-layer of a temperate beech-oak forest that was located in northern Spain. We measured species cover and four functional traits: leaf dry matter content (LDMC), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf size, and plant height. We found that light is the most limiting resource influencing herb-layer vegetation. Taxonomic changes in richness are followed by equivalent functional changes in the diversity of leaf size but by opposite responses in the richness of SLA. Each functional index is related to different environmental factors even within a single trait (particularly for LDMC and leaf size). To conclude, each characteristic of a plant community is influenced by different and even contrasting factors or processes. Combining different approaches, traits, and indices simultaneously will help us understand how plant communities work. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Resilience and Resistance to Climate Change)
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Other

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11 pages, 2476 KiB  
Technical Note
A Novel Simplified Protocol for Pre-Processing Whole Wood Samples for Stable Isotope Analysis in Tree Rings
by Osvaldo Pericolo, Camilla Avanzi, Andrea Piotti, Francesco Ripullone and Paola Nola
Forests 2023, 14(3), 631; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14030631 - 20 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1250
Abstract
In the context of climate change, the stable isotope analysis of tree rings may play a crucial role in deciphering the eco-physiological mechanisms underlying forest decline and dieback phenomena. However, this technique is often considered expensive, time-consuming, and with several methodological constraints. Specifically, [...] Read more.
In the context of climate change, the stable isotope analysis of tree rings may play a crucial role in deciphering the eco-physiological mechanisms underlying forest decline and dieback phenomena. However, this technique is often considered expensive, time-consuming, and with several methodological constraints. Specifically, milling and transferring the material from jars to vials during the different steps of sample preparation involve risk of contamination among samples and loss of sample material. When dealing with declining trees (i.e., trees affected by loss of vitality with strong percentage of defoliation and reduction in growth) and trees subjected to extreme events or negative pointer years (characterized by extremely narrow ring) the sample preparation is particularly difficult because of scarce amount of wood material. In such a case, pooling rings from several years to achieve the minimum weight of wood is often necessary, thus losing information at the annual resolution. In order to overcome such limitations, we developed a novel protocol for quick and accurate whole-wood pre-processing, testing it on oak tree rings of different widths taken from living trees. The main novelty introduced by our protocol was freezing tree-ring samples at −80 °C and milling multiple samples at a time by using a 24-tube plate. The results showed that our novel simplified protocol significantly reduced the pre-processing time with respect to the standard protocol (12 vs. 284 sec/sample), while achieving the same wood particle size, limiting the loss of wood material and reducing the risk of contamination among samples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Resilience and Resistance to Climate Change)
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