How Topography Impacts Forests under Global Change?

Dear Colleagues,

Impacts of global changes are far-reaching, with consequences being observed and anticipated for forest ecosystems worldwide. Overlaying on the global change background are a set of location-specific factors that exert strong local controls on forest growth and responses to environmental stressors and forcing. One such salient factor is topography, creating gradients in climate and resources that, in many cases, are the dominant processes driving species distribution, community composition, and landscape patterns across multiple spatial scales. Topographic influences operate through numerous mechanisms, being physical, biological, ecological, chemical or geological. Topographic signatures are also manifested in environment policies, forest governance, deforestation activities, and other human decision processes. Untangling all the spatial complexities associated with topography is not a new area, but its roles under a changing global environment are yet to be adequately explored and sometimes even underappreciated. We hope that this Special Issue will gather new research to better elucidate the interplay between topography with other environmental factors in shaping the future of forests and to foster deeper understanding under the theme of “How Topography Impacts Forests under Global Change”.

We invite any original research that explicitly identify topography as a factor in its study design with questions formulated in the context of global changes or with findings bearing implications for climate adaption and mitigation or forest management under global changes. Given the multi-faceted nature of the theme, the scope of this Special Issue is intentionally aimed to be broad, soliciting contributions from an array of relevant disciplines. Example topics include, but are limited to, species distribution, biodiversity, forest structure and composition, functional traits, fire, drought response, insect stress, genetic variability, phenology, canopy-air interaction, microclimate, hydrology, nutrient cycling, soil dynamics and chemistry, land-use change, climate regulation, ecosystem valuation, and forest polices and economics. Topography and its effect tend to be site-specific, which, for example, may provide refuge for species at one place but create barriers for range expansion at others. We, therefore, also welcome case studies that test existing knowledge and theories to facilitate great understanding of how topography can influence global change pressures. In addition, we are interested in contributions focusing on development of new instrumentation and techniques—in situ or remote sensing—that can improve the measurements and characterization of topographic effects on forests.

Dr. Kaiguang Zhao
Dr. Stephen N. Matthews
Guest Editors

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