Forest Ecosystems Under Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

Forest ecosystems are entering an era of unprecedented transformation. As climate change accelerates, shifts in temperature regimes, altered precipitation patterns, increased frequency of extreme events, and rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are reshaping the structure, function, and resilience of forests worldwide, either promoting or reducing regeneration, growth, and mortality. These changes are not uniform; they interact with local biophysical conditions, land‑use histories, and species‑specific traits, producing complex and often unpredictable ecological responses. Understanding these dynamics is essential for safeguarding the ecological, economic, and cultural services that forests provide.

Forests play a central role in global biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity conservation, and climate regulation. They act as major carbon sinks, harbor most terrestrial species, and support the livelihoods of millions of people. Yet, climate‑driven disturbances—such as droughts, heat waves, wildfires, pest outbreaks, and pathogen expansions—are increasingly compromising forest health and productivity. These pressures challenge traditional management paradigms and demand innovative, science‑based strategies to enhance forest adaptation and mitigation capacity.

This Special Issue, “Forest Ecosystems Under Climate Change,” invites contributions that deepen our understanding of how forests respond to ongoing and projected climatic shifts and the potential effects of management strategies in mitigating such changes. We welcome studies that explore physiological, ecological, genetic, and biogeochemical processes across spatial and temporal scales. Submissions may include empirical research, modeling approaches, long‑term monitoring, remote sensing analyses, and interdisciplinary frameworks that integrate ecological, social, and technological perspectives.

Our goal is to assemble a collection of high‑quality research that advances both fundamental knowledge and applied solutions. By bringing together diverse methodologies and viewpoints, this Special Issue aims to illuminate pathways for sustaining forest resilience, guiding adaptive management, and informing policy decisions in a rapidly changing world.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Forest physiology and tree responses: including drought tolerance, hydraulic failure, carbon allocation strategies, heat stress impacts on photosynthesis, respiration, and growth; tree mortality mechanisms under compound climate extremes; and phenological shifts and their ecological consequences.
• Forest biodiversity and community dynamics: including species range shifts and migration barriers, climate‑driven changes in forest composition and successional trajectories, functional diversity and ecosystem stability under climate stress, and impacts on understory vegetation, soil biota, and mycorrhizal networks.
• Disturbance regime in forests: including post‑fire regeneration plant responses, pest and pathogen outbreaks in a warming climate, windstorms, frost events, and other extreme climatic disturbances on forests, as well as interactions among multiple disturbance agents.
• Carbon cycling and biogeochemistry: including forest carbon sequestration potential under future climate scenarios, soil carbon dynamics, nutrient cycling, and microbial responses; greenhouse gas fluxes from forested landscapes; and the effects of elevated CO₂ on forest productivity and nutrient limitations.
• Remote sensing, monitoring, and modeling: including satellite-based detection of forest stress, mortality, and recovery; UAV and LiDAR applications for structural and functional assessments; process‑based, statistical, and machine‑learning models of forest dynamics; and early‑warning indicators of climate‑induced decline.
• Forest management, adaptation, and restoration: including climate‑smart silviculture and assisted migration, genetic improvement and selection for climate resilience, restoration of degraded or fire‑affected forests, and nature‑based solutions for climate mitigation.

Tropical, temperate, boreal and Mediterranean forest responses and adaptations: including molecular, morphological, and physiological responses, under biotic stresses such as drought, heat waves and high radiation.

Dr. Rafael A. Rubilar
Dr. Sergio Espinoza Meza
Prof. Dr. Otávio Campoe
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• climate change
• forest resilience
• tree physiology
• drought stress
• heat waves
• disturbance regimes
• carbon cycling
• remote sensing
• adaptive forest management
• ecosystem functioning
• ecosystem restoration