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Examining the Interactions of Climate Change and Disturbance Agents on...
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Examining the Interactions of Climate Change and Disturbance Agents on Patterns of Change in Forest Ecosystems

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (23 January 2022) | Viewed by 5472

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Brad Seely

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 4625-2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Interests: forest simulation modelling; ecosystem carbon storage; climate change impacts; water relations; stand dynamics; ecosystem services; forest entomology; remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

One thing we know for certain about forests is that they are always changing.  The factors that drive change in forests include natural patterns of growth and decay, but also biotic and abiotic disturbance agents including insects and pathogens and fire and wind among others.  Historically, forests have adapted to these omnipresent disturbance agents, such that the fundamental cycle or sphere of ecosystem condition has remained within a sustainable or recoverable range. Over the past few decades, with the steady march of climate change, scientists have observed forest disturbance agents impacting ecosystems in ways that are beyond the historical range.  Climate change is clearly influencing the frequency and intensity of many disturbance agents to a point where forest ecosystems may be unable to recover quickly enough and may be driven to an alternate state. Examples where such state shifts may already have started include North American pine forests that have been killed in unprecedented rates by massive bark beetle infestations, and wildfires consuming Australian eucalyptus forests with sizes and intensities well beyond historical ranges. Many questions surrounding this phenomenon must be addressed. How resilient are different types of forest ecosystems to accelerating and intensifying patterns of change? How is climate change influencing different types of biotic and abiotic disturbance agents?  What might these alternate states of forest ecosystems look like and what are the implications for the ecosystem services that they have historically provided?

We invite authors to submit papers to this Special Issue, employing different types of research tools to investigate these important questions.  Approaches may include modelling analyses, creative evaluations of long-term spatial data sets, and detailed examinations of the interactions between climate and forest disturbance agents.

Dr. Brad Seely
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.

Keywords

  • forest disturbance agents
  • natural disturbance regimes
  • forest ecosystem modelling
  • ecosystem services
  • ecosystem state change
  • landscape-scale analysis
  • climate change impacts

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 3755 KiB  
Article
Growth-Climate Relationships and Long-Term Growth Trends of the Tropical Forest Tree Choerospondias axillaris (Anacardiaceae) in East-Central Thailand
by Wisawakorn Surayothee, Supaporn Buajan, Peili Fu, Nathsuda Pumijumnong, Zexin Fan, Shankar Panthi, Patrick M. Finnegan, Yongjiang Zhang, Yajun Chen, Pantana Tor-ngern, Wirong Chanthorn, Anuttara Nathalang and Warren Y. Brockelman
Forests 2021, 12(12), 1655; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12121655 - 29 Nov 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2286
Abstract
Tropical forests play important roles in global carbon cycling. Tree-ring analysis can provide important information for understanding long-term trends in carbon-fixation capacity under climate change. However, tree-ring studies in tropical regions are limited. We carried out a tree-ring analysis to investigate the dendrochronological [...] Read more.
Tropical forests play important roles in global carbon cycling. Tree-ring analysis can provide important information for understanding long-term trends in carbon-fixation capacity under climate change. However, tree-ring studies in tropical regions are limited. We carried out a tree-ring analysis to investigate the dendrochronological potential of the tropical forest tree Choerospondias axillaris (Anacardiaceae) in east-central Thailand. Our study focused on growth-climate relationships and long-term growth trends. A chronology was constructed covering the period from 1932 to 2019. The tree-ring width index of C.axillaris was positively correlated with precipitation in June, July, and October. Furthermore, growth of C.axillaris was positively correlated with the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) from July to October, indicating that growth of C.axillaris is mainly limited by moisture availability in the late monsoon season. Moving correlation analysis further revealed the consistency and temporal stability of the relationship of tree growth with monsoon season precipitation and SPEI during the period under study. There was a significant increasing trend in long-term growth from 1932 to 2002 (slope = 0.017, p < 0.001); however, long-term growth decreased from 2003 to 2019 (slope = −0.014, p < 0.001). Our study provides important insight into the growth-climate correlations of a broad-leaved tree species in a dry evergreen forest in tropical Asia. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Examining the Interactions of Climate Change and Disturbance Agents on Patterns of Change in Forest Ecosystems)
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16 pages, 3464 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Community Dynamics Reveal Different Trajectories for Two Mid-Atlantic Maritime Forests
by Natasha N. Woods, Philip A. Tuley and Julie C. Zinnert
Forests 2021, 12(8), 1063; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12081063 - 10 Aug 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2540
Abstract
Maritime forests are threatened by sea-level rise, storm surge and encroachment of salt-tolerant species. On barrier islands, these forested communities must withstand the full force of tropical storms, hurricanes and nor’easters while the impact is reduced for mainland forests protected by barrier islands. [...] Read more.
Maritime forests are threatened by sea-level rise, storm surge and encroachment of salt-tolerant species. On barrier islands, these forested communities must withstand the full force of tropical storms, hurricanes and nor’easters while the impact is reduced for mainland forests protected by barrier islands. Geographic position may account for differences in maritime forest resilience to disturbance. In this study, we quantify two geographically distinct maritime forests protected by dunes on Virginia’s Eastern Shore (i.e., mainland and barrier island) at two time points (15 and 21 years apart, respectively) to determine whether the trajectory is successional or presenting evidence of disassembly with sea-level rise and storm exposure. We hypothesize that due to position on the landscape, forest disassembly will be higher on the barrier island than mainland as evidenced by reduction in tree basal area and decreased species richness. Rate of relative sea-level rise in the region was 5.9 ± 0.7 mm yr−1 based on monthly mean sea-level data from 1975 to 2017. Savage Neck Dunes Natural Area Preserve maritime forest was surveyed using the point quarter method in 2003 and 2018. Parramore Island maritime forest was surveyed in 1997 using 32 m diameter circular plots. As the island has been eroding over the past two decades, 2016 Landsat imagery was used to identify remaining forested plots prior to resurveying. In 2018, only plots that remained forested were resurveyed. Lidar was used to quantify elevation of each point/plot surveyed in 2018. Plot elevation at Savage Neck was 1.93 ± 0.02 m above sea level, whereas at Parramore Island, elevation was lower at 1.04 ± 0.08 m. Mainland dominant species, Acer rubrum, Pinus taeda, and Liquidambar styraciflua, remained dominant over the study period, with a 14% reduction in the total number of individuals recorded. Basal area increased by 11%. Conversely, on Parramore Island, 33% of the former forested plots converted to grassland and 33% were lost to erosion and occur as ghost forest on the shore or were lost to the ocean. Of the remaining forested plots surveyed in 2018, dominance switched from Persea palustris and Juniperus virginiana to the shrub Morella cerifera. Only 46% of trees/shrubs remained and basal area was reduced by 84%. Shrub basal area accounted for 66% of the total recorded in 2018. There are alternative paths to maritime forest trajectory which differ for barrier island and mainland. Geographic position relative to disturbance and elevation likely explain the changes in forest community composition over the timeframes studied. Protected mainland forest at Savage Neck occurs at higher mean elevation and indicates natural succession to larger and fewer individuals, with little change in mixed hardwood-pine dominance. The fronting barrier island maritime forest on Parramore Island has undergone rapid change in 21 years, with complete loss of forested communities to ocean or conversion to mesic grassland. Of the forests remaining, dominant evergreen trees are now being replaced with the expanding evergreen shrub, Morella cerifera. Loss of biomass and basal area has been documented in other low elevation coastal forests. Our results indicate that an intermediate shrub state may precede complete loss of woody communities in some coastal communities, providing an alternative mechanism of resilience. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Examining the Interactions of Climate Change and Disturbance Agents on Patterns of Change in Forest Ecosystems)
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