Disturbances often act quickly and with great effect, to alter the physical structure or arrangement of biotic and abiotic elements. In particular, they examined whether disturbance was likely to increase or decrease under either 1 warmer and wetter or 2 warmer and drier conditions. Researchers synthesized results from over 670 studies published from 1990 to the present that assessed how forest disturbance changed in response to a change in climate, focusing on six disturbance agents fire, drought, wind, snow and ice, insects, and pathogens. The resistant treatment reduces the occurrence of management to maintain existing forest composition. Climate change and forest disturbances usda forest service.
Forest disturbances under climate change air unimi. This paper is one in a series developed by the forest sector of the us national assessment of the potential consequences of climate variability and change. Impacts of disturbances and thus of climate change are seen over a board spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. When disturbances exceed their natural range of variation, the change in forest structure and function may be extreme. The forest service is the only federal agency that maintains a strong research focus on forest pests. Finally, we found th at climate change was the most critical driver of area. A toolkit for state governments created by the forest climate working group how states can promote forest carbon services in the context of current policy environment the fcwg believes there is an opportunity. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require adjustments to forest.
Forests in the carpathian mountains store high amounts of carbon and provide livelihoods to local people. The capability of forest ecosystems to sequester carbon from the atmosphere largely depends on the interaction of soil organic matter and nitrogen, and thus, this process will be greatly influenced by nitrogen deposition under the future scenario of global change. Limits to growth of forest biomass carbon sink under. Forest disturbances under climate change rupert seidl1, dominik thom1. Some disturbances can be functions of both natural and human conditions e. Therefore, we selected a representative area of 40 km2 to investigate the effects of changing climate and disturbance. Climate change and forest disturbances publications srs. Here we provide a global synthesis of climate change effects. The national climate assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the united states. Vulnerability of forests in the himalayan region to. However, climate change will likely also intensify forest disturbances. Project imaestro is supported under the umbrella of eranet cofund forestvalue.
This analysis points to specific research needs that should improve the understanding of how climate change affects forest disturbances. Forest disturbances under climate change researchgate. We also consider options for coping with disturbance under changing climate. Pdf forest disturbances under climate change scinapse. Important processes through which climate influences forest disturbances. Disturbance and landscape dynamics in a changing world.
A majority of the information extracted from the literature 83. Forests climate change, biodiversity and land degradation. Climate change vulnerability assessment of forests and. The effects of each disturbance are partly tempered by prior adaptations. Innovative forest management strategies for a resilient. Warmer and drier conditions particularly facilitate fire, drought and insect disturbances, while warmer and wetter conditions increase disturbances from wind and pathogens. While accelerated forest restoration on its own is unlikely to be a sufficient long. Responses of korean pine to proactive managements under. The himalayan region is not only threatened by rapid changes in anthropogenic activities but also by global climate change. Spatial resilience of forested landscapes under climate. Some disturbances have tight interactions with the species and forest communities which can be disrupted by climate change. Forest disturbances have become more common during the past century, and climate change is expected to lead to increased occurrences in europe seidl et al. Proactive managements, such as the resistant and the adaptive treatments, have been proposed to mediate the effects of future climates 10,12. Tree mortality under the concurrent disturbance regime scenario was less than the sum of all single disturbance regimes, providing evidence of signi.
Impacts of disturbances and thus of climate change are seen over a board spectrum of. Computational ecology and environmental sciences group, microsoft research, 21 station road, cambridge, cb1 2fb, uk. Negative impacts of climate change on forests threaten the delivery of crucial wood and nonwood goods and environmental services on which an estimated 1. We focus on examples from the united states, although these influences occur worldwide. The amount of information available on the effects of climate change on forest disturbances varied strongly with disturbance agent and biome table s1. Moreover, the forest case studies are themselves very different in terms of forest management, species choice etc which are all factors that determine the influence of climate change. Forest disturbances under climate change request pdf. The national climate assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the united states, now and in the future. Forestry intergovernmental panel on climate change. Resilience, the ability to recover from disturbance, has risen to the forefront of scientific policy, but is difficult to quantify, particularly in large, forested landscapes subject to disturbances, management, and climate change.
Managing increasing forest disturbance risks forest europe. In ecology, a disturbance is a temporary change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem. However, it remains challenging to project exactly how humans will respond to climate change in terms of forest management. Interactions between individual disturbance agents are a major component of disturbance regimes, yet how interactions contribute to their climate sensitivity remains largely unknown. Postdisturbance recovery of forest carbon in a temperate.
Assessment of the vulnerability of forests and forestdependent people to climate change is a necessary. More than one third of the synthesized investigations on disturbance change focused on coniferous forests 39. Pdf forest disturbances under climate change researchgate. The interplay between climate change, forests, and. Given the uncertainties of magnitude and characteristics of climate change, prior knowledge of longterm changing distribution pattern of forests is. Management could hinder or reinforce the transition of forest composition in accordance with various objectives in the face of climate change 10,11. A conceptual framework for adaptive forest management under climate change 47 forest management can be used to modify the delivery of ecosystem services by adding or subtracting biophysical inputs. Our objective was to determine which spatial drivers will control landscape resilience over the next century, given a range of plausible climate projections across. However, our understanding of disturbance dynamics in response to climatic changes.
Climate change, in particular, is expected to impact on forest biodiversity and the ability of forests to provide soil and water protection, habitat for species and other ecosystem services. Altogether, this means that more variation of the changes in forest productivity under climate change and disturbances than expressed by our results is to be. Previous studies have projected that restoration under climate change will result in long. Forest disturbances in a changing climate july 28, 2017 by jennifer hushaw disturbance shapes the character and composition of ecosystems and it is a pervasive feature of.
Innovative forest management strategies for a resilient bioeconomy under climate change and disturbances. Are forest disturbances amplifying or canceling out. Forestry mitigation activities can be designed to be compatible with adapting to climate change, maintaining biodiversity, and promoting sustainable development. Consequently, disturbance change is expected to be among the most profound impacts that climate change will have on forest ecosystems in the. However, our understanding of disturbance dynamics in response to climatic changes remains. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of forest productivity changes in different forests in europe under climate. Forest ecosystem disturbances national climate assessment. Attribution of net carbon change by disturbance type. Here we provide a global synthesis of climate change effects on important abiotic fire, drought, wind. How do disturbances and environmental heterogeneity affect the pace of forest distribution shifts under climate change. Context growing evidence suggests that climate change could substantially alter forest disturbances. Increasing forest disturbances in europe and their impact. This article examines how eight disturbances influence forest structure, composition, and function and how climate change may influence the severity, frequency, and magnitude of disturbances to forests.
Here we provide a global synthesis of climate change effects on important abiotic fire, drought, wind, snow and ice and biotic insects and pathogens disturbance agents. Disturbances are a natural and integral part of forest ecosystems, and climate change can alter these natural interactions. However, our understanding of disturbance dynamics in response to climatic changes remains incomplete, particularly regarding largescale patterns, interaction effects and dampening feedbacks. Climate change adaption and mitigation management optionsa guide for natural resource managers in southern forest ecosystems crc press taylor and francis. Disturbances from all other agents increased under future climate change, with median effect sizes of. Disturbances catalyze the adaptation of forest ecosystems.
Maintaining these properties under the influence of climate change requires continuous and even increasing efforts of forest. Climate change affects forests both directly and indirectly through disturbances. The recovery of north american forests is likely to impact their capacity as a carbon sink. Disturbance regimes have changed profoundly in many forest ecosystems in recent years, with climate being a prominent driver of disturbance change9. Climate change guidelines for forest managers fao forestry paper 172 the effects of climate change and climate variability on forest ecosystems are evident around the world and further impacts are unavoidable, at least in the short to medium term. Evidence for declining forest resilience to wildfires. This article examines how eight disturbances influence forest structure, composition, and function, and how climate change may influence the severity, frequency, and magnitude of disturbances to forests. Climate may affect forest composition and structure via its in. Studies of the effects of climate change on forests have focused on the ability of species to tolerate temperature and moisture changes and to disperse, but they have ignored the effects of disturbances caused by climate change e.
This allowed them to assess the degree of climate sensitivity. Forest carbon solutions for mitigating climate change. Climate change will alter forest ecosystems and their provisioning of services. Are forest disturbances amplifying or canceling out climate change. Within the united states, natural disturbances having the greatest ef fects on forests include fire, drought, introduced species, in sect and pathogen outbreaks. Yet modeling studies indicate the importance of climate effects on disturbance regimes he. How do disturbances and environmental heterogeneity affect. Forest ecosystems identified as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of. They determined whether climate change had a predominantly amplifying or dampening effect on disturbance, as well as the relative size of that effect.
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