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Forests
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Alpine Treeline Dynamics in the Anthropocene
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Alpine Treeline Dynamics in the Anthropocene

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2021) | Viewed by 4759

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Udo Schickhoff

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CEN Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability, Institute of Geography, University of Hamburg, Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Interests: biogeography; vegetation ecology; landscape ecology; human–environmental interactions; geography and ecology of mountains
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Grant Elliott

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geography, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
Interests: climate–vegetation interactions; the biogeographical manifestation of climate change in forest ecosystems; the role of bioclimatic thresholds in driving vegetation change; influence of climate on process–pattern interactions in vegetation communities.

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

In recent years, the plethora of relevant publications indicates the rapidly increasing interest in high-elevation treeline research. As thermal limitations determine treeline elevation at large scales, the majority of recent studies are dedicated to the key question of treeline response to climate warming and the potential upslope advance of the climatic treeline. Most studies address complex spatial and temporal patterns of treeline response as influenced by the interaction of broad-scale controls (regional temperature) and fine-scale modulators (the abiotic and biotic local site con­ditions and their interactions, including complex patterns of recruitment and seedling establishment, land use effects, and treeline–landscape history), while the inconsistency of currently observed treeline responses (notable advance vs. insignificant responses) still persists. It has become obvious that spatial patterns of treeline ecotones contain key information on the processes that control treeline dynamics. This Special Issue seeks contributions to further improve our understanding of the drivers and processes of treeline dynamics under the conditions of climate change and land use change, focusing on treeline ecotone spatial patterns, relevant site factors (thermal, hydrological, edaphic), seedling establishment and recruitment, and demography and population ecology. Particularly welcome are manuscripts that elaborate explanations for either significant or lagged responses of treelines, that disentangle the effects of hu­man impact from effects of multiple eco­logical and biophysical factors in shaping treeline dy­namics, and that provide the basis for meaningful predictions of treeline dynamics under climate change conditions.

Prof. Dr. Udo Schickhoff
Dr. Grant Elliott
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

  • Alpine treelines
  • Climate change
  • Climate–vegetation interactions
  • Ecological site factors
  • Land use change
  • Tree recruitment
  • Treeline ecotone spatial patterns
  • Treeline dynamics

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2966 KiB  
Article
Opposite Tree-Tree Interactions Jointly Drive the Natural Fir Treeline Population on the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau
by Yafeng Wang, Qing Mao, Ping Ren and Shalik Ram Sigdel
Forests 2021, 12(10), 1417; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12101417 - 18 Oct 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2200
Abstract
The long-term stability of alpine treeline positions and increased stem density are frequently reported by recent studies; however, whether a denser treeline forest is relevant to competitive tree–tree interactions remain unclear. Herein, we mapped and surveyed individual trees in two undisturbed Smith fir [...] Read more.
The long-term stability of alpine treeline positions and increased stem density are frequently reported by recent studies; however, whether a denser treeline forest is relevant to competitive tree–tree interactions remain unclear. Herein, we mapped and surveyed individual trees in two undisturbed Smith fir (Abies georgei var. smithii) treeline plots (with a size: 30 m × 200 m; plot NE1: 4477 m, NE2: 4451 m) near Ranwu Lake (RW) on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. The surface pattern method and spatial point pattern analysis were used to detect the spatial distribution patterns of three size classes (seedlings, juveniles, adults) and spatial associations between the pairwise size classes. We also compared our results to the spatial patterns of the five other treeline forests (Deqin, Linzhi, Changdu, Yushu, Aba) reported from the Tibetan Plateau. Young trees dominated the two fir treeline plots. Both positive and negative spatial autocorrelations for all of the trees were detected in two study plots. Intraspecific facilitation and competition coexisted at the fir treelines in three forest regions (RW, Linzhi, Aba) characterized by a mild moist climate, whereas intraspecific facilitation dominated the other three forest regions (Changdu, Deqin, Yushu), which featured seasonal climatic stress or high disturbance pressure. Thus, increased stem density at alpine treeline can be linked to competitive interactions in relatively favorable environmental conditions. Overall, the spatial patterns of the treeline population are mainly shaped by the combination of thermal and moisture conditions and are also modulated by non-climatic variables (e.g., disturbance history and microtopography). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Alpine Treeline Dynamics in the Anthropocene)
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37 pages, 25395 KiB  
Article
Conifer Establishment and Encroachment on Subalpine Meadows around Mt. Baker, WA, USA
by Ben Hagedorn and Aquila Flower
Forests 2021, 12(10), 1390; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12101390 - 12 Oct 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1893
Abstract
The subalpine ecotone is experiencing significant changes in habitat availability and connectivity as a result of climate change. The conversion of meadow habitats to forests has been observed in many mountainous regions. Rates of conifer encroachment into meadows appears to have increased in [...] Read more.
The subalpine ecotone is experiencing significant changes in habitat availability and connectivity as a result of climate change. The conversion of meadow habitats to forests has been observed in many mountainous regions. Rates of conifer encroachment into meadows appears to have increased in the 20th century, but the patterns of conifer establishment seem highly variable over both space and time. To understand how and why these changes vary temporally and spatially in the Pacific Northwest, we collected cross-sections and whorl counts from conifers along four transects in subalpine meadows around Mt. Baker, Washington. We quantified the relationships between temporal patterns of conifer establishment and a suite of climate variables, and between spatial patterns of conifer density and microsite characteristics. Our results show that establishment occurred in pulses throughout the 20th century, with greater establishment on drier sites during periods of greater precipitation, and greater establishment on wetter sites during periods of higher temperatures. We found that April precipitation and September temperature are particularly strongly correlated with establishment rates, suggesting that the best conditions for conifer seedling establishment occur in years with the warmth and soil moisture needed for the growing season to start earlier or last longer. Within individual meadows, conifer seedling establishment was greater on convex surfaces and in areas with a higher percentage of Vaccinium cover. Our findings at Mt. Baker show that periods of conifer establishment occurred somewhat synchronously across multiple mountains in the region, but we also identified distinct spatial and temporal differences linked to local site conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Alpine Treeline Dynamics in the Anthropocene)
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