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Kaasik A, Kont R, Lõhmus A. Modeling forest landscape futures: Full scale simulation of realistic socioeconomic scenarios in Estonia. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0294650. [PMID: 37976263 PMCID: PMC10655990 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/05/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023] Open
Abstract
For political and administrative governance of land-use decisions, high-resolution and reliable spatial models are required over large areas and for various time horizons. We present a process-centered simulation model 'NextStand' (a forest landscape model, FLM) and its R-script, which predicts regional forest characteristics at a forest stand resolution. The model uses whole area stand data and is optimized for realistic iterative timber harvesting decisions, based on stand compositions (developing over time) and locations. We used the model for simulating spatial predictions of the Estonian forests in North Europe (2.3 Mha, about 2 M stands); the decisions were parameterized by land ownership, protection regimes, and rules of clear-cut harvesting. We illustrate the model application as a potential broad-scale Decision Support Tool by predicting how the forest age composition, placement of clear-cut areas, and connectivity of old stands will develop until the year 2050 under future scenarios. The country-scale outputs had a generally low within-scenario variance, which enabled to estimate some main land-use effects and uncertainties at small computing efforts. In forestry terms, we show that a continuation of recent intensive forest management trends will produce a decline of the national timber supplies in Estonia, which greatly varies among ownership types. In a conservation perspective, the current level of 13% forest area strictly protected can maintain an overall area of old forests by 2050, but their isolation is a problem for biodiversity conservation. The behavior of low-intensity forest management units (owners) and strict governance of clear-cut harvesting rules emerged as key questions for regional forest sustainability. Our study confirms that high-resolution modeling of future spatial composition of forest land is feasible when one can (i) delineate predictable spatial units of transformation (including management) and (ii) capture their variability of temporal change with simple ecological and socioeconomic (including human decision-making) variables.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ants Kaasik
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, J. Liivi, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Raido Kont
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, J. Liivi, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Asko Lõhmus
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, J. Liivi, Tartu, Estonia
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2
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Forzieri G, Dutrieux LP, Elia A, Eckhardt B, Caudullo G, Taboada FÁ, Andriolo A, Bălăcenoiu F, Bastos A, Buzatu A, Dorado FC, Dobrovolný L, Duduman ML, Fernandez-Carrillo A, Hernández-Clemente R, Hornero A, Ionuț S, Lombardero MJ, Junttila S, Lukeš P, Marianelli L, Mas H, Mlčoušek M, Mugnai F, Nețoiu C, Nikolov C, Olenici N, Olsson PO, Paoli F, Paraschiv M, Patočka Z, Pérez-Laorga E, Quero JL, Rüetschi M, Stroheker S, Nardi D, Ferenčík J, Battisti A, Hartmann H, Nistor C, Cescatti A, Beck PSA. The Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances: DEFID2. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2023; 29:6040-6065. [PMID: 37605971 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16912] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2023] [Revised: 07/17/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 08/23/2023]
Abstract
Insect and disease outbreaks in forests are biotic disturbances that can profoundly alter ecosystem dynamics. In many parts of the world, these disturbance regimes are intensifying as the climate changes and shifts the distribution of species and biomes. As a result, key forest ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, regulation of water flows, wood production, protection of soils, and the conservation of biodiversity, could be increasingly compromised. Despite the relevance of these detrimental effects, there are currently no spatially detailed databases that record insect and disease disturbances on forests at the pan-European scale. Here, we present the new Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances (DEFID2). It comprises over 650,000 harmonized georeferenced records, mapped as polygons or points, of insects and disease disturbances that occurred between 1963 and 2021 in European forests. The records currently span eight different countries and were acquired through diverse methods (e.g., ground surveys, remote sensing techniques). The records in DEFID2 are described by a set of qualitative attributes, including severity and patterns of damage symptoms, agents, host tree species, climate-driven trigger factors, silvicultural practices, and eventual sanitary interventions. They are further complemented with a satellite-based quantitative characterization of the affected forest areas based on Landsat Normalized Burn Ratio time series, and damage metrics derived from them using the LandTrendr spectral-temporal segmentation algorithm (including onset, duration, magnitude, and rate of the disturbance), and possible interactions with windthrow and wildfire events. The DEFID2 database is a novel resource for many large-scale applications dealing with biotic disturbances. It offers a unique contribution to design networks of experiments, improve our understanding of ecological processes underlying biotic forest disturbances, monitor their dynamics, and enhance their representation in land-climate models. Further data sharing is encouraged to extend and improve the DEFID2 database continuously. The database is freely available at https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/FOREST/DISTURBANCES/DEFID2/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Forzieri
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
| | | | | | - Bernd Eckhardt
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
| | | | - Flor Álvarez Taboada
- DRACONES Research Group, Universidad de León, León, Spain
- Sustainable Forestry and Environmental Management Unit, University of Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Alessandro Andriolo
- Ufficio Pianificazione Forestale, Amministrazione Provincia Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy
| | - Flavius Bălăcenoiu
- National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Drăcea" (INCDS), Voluntari, Romania
| | - Ana Bastos
- Department of Biogeochemical Processes, Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
| | - Andrei Buzatu
- National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Drăcea" (INCDS), Craiova, Romania
| | - Fernando Castedo Dorado
- DRACONES Research Group, Universidad de León, León, Spain
- Sustainable Forestry and Environmental Management Unit, University of Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Lumír Dobrovolný
- University Forest Enterprise Masaryk Forest Křtiny, Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Mihai-Leonard Duduman
- Applied Ecology Laboratory, Forestry Faculty, "Ștefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Suceava, Romania
| | | | | | - Alberto Hornero
- Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (IAS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Córdoba, Spain
- Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT), The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Săvulescu Ionuț
- Department of Geomorphology-Pedology-Geomatics, Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
| | - María J Lombardero
- Sustainable Forestry and Environmental Management Unit, University of Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Samuli Junttila
- School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
| | - Petr Lukeš
- Czechglobe-Global Change Research Institute, CAS, Brno, Czech Republic
- Ústav pro hospodářskou úpravu lesů-Forest Management Institute (FMI), Brno-Žabovřesky, Czech Republic
| | - Leonardo Marianelli
- CREA Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification, Florence, Italy
| | - Hugo Mas
- Laboratori de Sanitat Forestal, Servei d'Ordenació i Gestió Forestal, Conselleria d'Agricultura, Desenvolupament Rural, Emergència Climàtica i Transició Ecològica, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia, Spain
| | - Marek Mlčoušek
- Czechglobe-Global Change Research Institute, CAS, Brno, Czech Republic
- Ústav pro hospodářskou úpravu lesů-Forest Management Institute (FMI), Brno-Žabovřesky, Czech Republic
| | - Francesco Mugnai
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
| | - Constantin Nețoiu
- National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Drăcea" (INCDS), Craiova, Romania
| | - Christo Nikolov
- National Forest Centre, Forest Research Institute, Zvolen, Slovakia
| | - Nicolai Olenici
- National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Drăcea" (INCDS), Voluntari, Romania
| | - Per-Ola Olsson
- Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Francesco Paoli
- CREA Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification, Florence, Italy
| | - Marius Paraschiv
- National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry "Marin Drăcea" (INCDS), Brașov, Romania
| | - Zdeněk Patočka
- Department of Forest Management and Applied Geoinformatics, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Eduardo Pérez-Laorga
- Laboratori de Sanitat Forestal, Servei d'Ordenació i Gestió Forestal, Conselleria d'Agricultura, Desenvolupament Rural, Emergència Climàtica i Transició Ecològica, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia, Spain
| | - Jose Luis Quero
- Department of Forest Engineering, University of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain
| | - Marius Rüetschi
- Department of Land Change Science, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Sophie Stroheker
- Swiss Forest Protection, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Davide Nardi
- DAFNAE-Entomology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Ján Ferenčík
- Research Station Tatra National Park, Tatranská Lomnica, Slovakia
| | | | - Henrik Hartmann
- Department of Biogeochemical Processes, Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
- Insitute for Forest Protection, Julius Kühn-Institute, Federal Research Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, Quedlinburg, Germany
| | - Constantin Nistor
- Department of Geomorphology-Pedology-Geomatics, Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
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Ramage BS, Johnson DJ, Chan DM. Effects of drought, disturbance, and biotic neighborhood on experimental tree seedling performance. Ecol Evol 2023; 13:e10413. [PMID: 37593754 PMCID: PMC10427772 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10413] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Revised: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 07/26/2023] [Indexed: 08/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Forest biodiversity is likely maintained by a complex suite of interacting drivers that vary in importance across both space and time. Contributing factors include disturbance, interannual variation in abiotic variables, and biotic neighborhood effects. To probe ongoing uncertainties and potential interactions, we investigated tree seedling performance in a temperate mid-Atlantic forest ecosystem. We planted seedlings of five native tree species in mapped study plots, half of which were subjected to disturbance, and then monitored seedling survival, height growth, and foliar condition. The final year of data collection encompassed a drought, enabling comparison between intervals varying in water availability. Seedling performance was analyzed as a function of canopy cover and biotic neighborhood (conspecific and heterospecific abundance), including interactions, with separate generalized linear mixed models fit for each interval. All species exhibited: (a) pronounced declines in height growth during the drought year, (b) detrimental effects of adult conspecifics, and (c) beneficial effects of canopy openness. However, despite these consistencies, there was considerable variation across species in terms of the relevant predictors for each response variable in each interval. Our results suggest that drought may strengthen or reveal conspecific inhibition in some instances while weakening it or obscuring it in others, and that some forms of conspecific inhibition may manifest only under particular canopy conditions (although given the inconsistency of our findings, we are not convinced that conspecific inhibition is critical for diversity maintenance in our study system). Overall, our work reveals a complex forest ecosystem that appears simultaneously and interactively governed by biotic neighborhood structure (e.g., conspecific and/or heterospecific abundance), local habitat conditions (e.g., canopy cover), and interannual variability (e.g., drought).
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Daniel J. Johnson
- School of Forest, Fisheries, & Geomatics sciencesUniversity of FloridaGainesvilleFloridaUSA
| | - David M. Chan
- Department of Mathematics and Applied MathematicsVirginia Commonwealth UniversityRichmondVirginiaUSA
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4
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Lázaro-González A, Andivia E, Hampe A, Hasegawa S, Marzano R, Santos AMC, Castro J, Leverkus AB. Revegetation through seeding or planting: A worldwide systematic map. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2023; 337:117713. [PMID: 36958277 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2022] [Revised: 03/07/2023] [Accepted: 03/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Roughly 2 billion ha of land are degraded and in need of ecological restoration worldwide. Active restoration frequently involves revegetation, which leads to the dilemma of whether to conduct direct seeding or to plant nursery-grown seedlings. The choice of revegetation method can regulate plant survival and performance, with economic implications that ultimately feed back to our capacity to conduct restoration. We followed a peer-reviewed protocol to develop a systematic map that collates, describes and catalogues the available studies on how seeding compares to planting in achieving restoration targets. We compiled a database with the characteristics of all retrieved studies, which can be searched to identify studies of particular locations and habitats, objectives of restoration, plant material, technical aspects, and outcomes measured. The search was made in eight languages and retrieved 3355 publications, of which 178 were retained. The systematic map identifies research gaps, such as a lack of studies in the global South, in tropical rainforests, and covering a long time period, which represent opportunities to expand field-based research. Additionally, many studies overlooked reporting on important technical aspects such as seed provenance and nursery cultivation methods, and others such as watering or seedling protection were more frequently applied for planting than for seeding, which limits our capacity to learn from past research. Most studies measured outcomes related to the target plants but avoided measuring general restoration outcomes or economic aspects. This represents a relevant gap in research, as the choice of revegetation method is greatly based on economic aspects and the achievement of restoration goals goes beyond the establishment of plants. Finally, we identified a substantial volume of studies conducted in temperate regions and over short periods (0-5 y). This research cluster calls for a future in-depth synthesis, potentially through meta-analysis, to reveal the overall balance between seeding and planting and assess whether the response to this question is mediated by species traits, environmental characteristics, or technical aspects. Besides identifying research clusters and gaps, the systematic map database allows managers to find the most relevant scientific literature on the appropriateness of seeding vs. planting for particular conditions, such as certain species or habitats.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alba Lázaro-González
- Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain; INRAE, University of Bordeaux, BIOGECO, F-33610, Cestas, France.
| | - Enrique Andivia
- Department of Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
| | - Arndt Hampe
- INRAE, University of Bordeaux, BIOGECO, F-33610, Cestas, France
| | - Shun Hasegawa
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden; Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
| | - Raffaella Marzano
- University of Torino, Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Largo Paolo Braccini 2, IT, 10095, Grugliasco, TO, Italy
| | - Ana M C Santos
- Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG-UAM), Departamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Jorge Castro
- Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain
| | - Alexandro B Leverkus
- Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain; Laboratorio de Ecología, Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación Del Sistema Tierra en Andalucía (IISTA), University of Granada, 18006, Granada, Spain
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5
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Dickman LT, Jonko AK, Linn RR, Altintas I, Atchley AL, Bär A, Collins AD, Dupuy J, Gallagher MR, Hiers JK, Hoffman CM, Hood SM, Hurteau MD, Jolly WM, Josephson A, Loudermilk EL, Ma W, Michaletz ST, Nolan RH, O'Brien JJ, Parsons RA, Partelli‐Feltrin R, Pimont F, Resco de Dios V, Restaino J, Robbins ZJ, Sartor KA, Schultz‐Fellenz E, Serbin SP, Sevanto S, Shuman JK, Sieg CH, Skowronski NS, Weise DR, Wright M, Xu C, Yebra M, Younes N. Integrating plant physiology into simulation of fire behavior and effects. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 238:952-970. [PMID: 36694296 PMCID: PMC10952334 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2022] [Accepted: 12/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Wildfires are a global crisis, but current fire models fail to capture vegetation response to changing climate. With drought and elevated temperature increasing the importance of vegetation dynamics to fire behavior, and the advent of next generation models capable of capturing increasingly complex physical processes, we provide a renewed focus on representation of woody vegetation in fire models. Currently, the most advanced representations of fire behavior and biophysical fire effects are found in distinct classes of fine-scale models and do not capture variation in live fuel (i.e. living plant) properties. We demonstrate that plant water and carbon dynamics, which influence combustion and heat transfer into the plant and often dictate plant survival, provide the mechanistic linkage between fire behavior and effects. Our conceptual framework linking remotely sensed estimates of plant water and carbon to fine-scale models of fire behavior and effects could be a critical first step toward improving the fidelity of the coarse scale models that are now relied upon for global fire forecasting. This process-based approach will be essential to capturing the influence of physiological responses to drought and warming on live fuel conditions, strengthening the science needed to guide fire managers in an uncertain future.
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Affiliation(s)
- L. Turin Dickman
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Alexandra K. Jonko
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Rodman R. Linn
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Ilkay Altintas
- San Diego Supercomputer Center and Halicioglu Data Science InstituteUniversity of California San DiegoLa JollaCA92093USA
| | - Adam L. Atchley
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Andreas Bär
- Department of BotanyUniversity of Innsbruck6020InnsbruckAustria
| | - Adam D. Collins
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Jean‐Luc Dupuy
- Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (URFM)INRAe84914AvignonFrance
| | | | | | - Chad M. Hoffman
- Department of Forest and Rangeland StewardshipColorado State UniversityFort CollinsCO80523USA
| | - Sharon M. Hood
- Rocky Mountain Research StationUSDA Forest ServiceMissoulaMT59801USA
| | | | - W. Matt Jolly
- Rocky Mountain Research StationUSDA Forest ServiceMissoulaMT59801USA
| | - Alexander Josephson
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | | | - Wu Ma
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Sean T. Michaletz
- Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research CentreThe University of British ColumbiaVancouverBCV6T 1Z4Canada
| | - Rachael H. Nolan
- Hawkesbury Institute for the EnvironmentWestern Sydney UniversityPenrithNSW2753Australia
- NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research HubWollongongNSW2522Australia
| | | | | | - Raquel Partelli‐Feltrin
- Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research CentreThe University of British ColumbiaVancouverBCV6T 1Z4Canada
| | - François Pimont
- Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (URFM)INRAe84914AvignonFrance
| | - Víctor Resco de Dios
- School of Life Sciences and EngineeringSouthwest University of Science and TechnologyMianyang621010China
- Department of Crop and Forest Sciences and JRU CTFC‐AGROTECNIOUniversitat de LleidaLleida25198Spain
| | - Joseph Restaino
- Fire and Resource Assessment ProgramCalifornia Department of Forestry and Fire ProtectionSouth Lake TahoeCA96155USA
| | - Zachary J. Robbins
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Karla A. Sartor
- Environmental Protection and Compliance DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Emily Schultz‐Fellenz
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Shawn P. Serbin
- Environmental and Climate Sciences DepartmentBrookhaven National LaboratoryUptonNY11973USA
| | - Sanna Sevanto
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Jacquelyn K. Shuman
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Terrestrial Sciences SectionNational Center for Atmospheric ResearchBoulderCO80305USA
| | - Carolyn H. Sieg
- Rocky Mountain Research StationUSDA Forest ServiceFlagstaffAZ86001USA
| | | | - David R. Weise
- Pacific Southwest Research StationUSDA Forest ServiceRiversideCA92507USA
| | - Molly Wright
- Cibola National ForestUSDA Forest ServiceAlbuquerqueNM87113USA
| | - Chonggang Xu
- Earth & Environmental Sciences DivisionLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos AlamosNM87545USA
| | - Marta Yebra
- Fenner School of Environment and SocietyAustralian National UniversityCanberraACT2601Australia
- School of EngineeringAustralian National UniversityCanberraACT2601Australia
| | - Nicolas Younes
- Fenner School of Environment and SocietyAustralian National UniversityCanberraACT2601Australia
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Gnilke A, Sanders TGM. Distinguishing Abrupt and Gradual Forest Disturbances With MODIS-Based Phenological Anomaly Series. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2022; 13:863116. [PMID: 35677238 PMCID: PMC9168887 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.863116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2022] [Accepted: 04/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Capturing forest disturbances over time is increasingly important to determine the ecosystem's capacity to recover as well as aiding a timely response of foresters. With changes due to climate change increasing the frequencies, a better understanding of forest disturbances and their role in historical development is needed to, on the one hand, develop forest management approaches promoting ecosystem resilience and, on the other hand, provide quick and spatially explicit information to foresters. A large, publicly available satellite imagery spanning more than two decades for large areas of the Earth's surface at varying spatial and temporal resolutions represents a vast, free data source for this. The challenge is 2-fold: (1) obtaining reliable information on forest condition and development from satellite data requires not only quantification of forest loss but rather a differentiated assessment of the extent and severity of forest degradation; (2) standardized and efficient processing routines both are needed to bridge the gap between remote-sensing signals and conventional forest condition parameters to enable forest managers for the operational use of the data. Here, we investigated abiotic and biotic disturbances based on a set of ground validated occurrences in various forest areas across Germany to build disturbance response chronologies and examine event-specific patterns. The proposed workflow is based on the R-package "npphen" for non-parametric vegetation phenology reconstruction and anomaly detection using MODIS EVI time series data. Results show the potential to detect distinct disturbance responses in forest ecosystems and reveal event-specific characteristics. Difficulties still exist for the determination of, e.g., scattered wind throw, due to its subpixel resolution, especially in highly fragmented landscapes and small forest patches. However, the demonstrated method shows potential for operational use as a semi-automatic system to augment terrestrial monitoring in the forestry sector. Combining the more robust EVI and the assessment of the phenological series at a pixel-by-pixel level allows for a changing species cover without false classification as forest loss.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne Gnilke
- Department of Forest Ecology and Biodiversity, Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems, Eberswalde, Germany
- Department of Disturbance Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Tanja G. M. Sanders
- Department of Forest Ecology and Biodiversity, Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems, Eberswalde, Germany
- Department of Disturbance Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
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8
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Fitts LA, Domke GM, Russell MB. Comparing methods that quantify forest disturbances in the United States' national forest inventory. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT 2022; 194:304. [PMID: 35348883 DOI: 10.1007/s10661-022-09948-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2021] [Accepted: 03/12/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Forest disturbances play a critical role in ecosystem dynamics. However, the methods for quantifying these disturbances at broad scales may underestimate disturbances that affect individual trees. Utilizing individual tree variables may provide early disturbance detection that directly affects tree demographics and forest dynamics. The goals of this study were to (1) describe different methods for quantifying disturbances at individual tree and condition-level scales, (2) compare the differences between disturbance variables, and (3) provide a methodology for selecting an appropriate disturbance variable from national forest inventories for diverse applications depending on user needs. To achieve these goals, we used all the remeasurements available from the USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database since the start of the annual inventory for the lower 48 US states. Variables used included disturbance code, treatment code, agent of mortality, and damage code. Chi-square tests of independence were used to verify how the choice of the variable that represents disturbance affects its magnitude. Disturbed plots, as classified by each disturbance variable, were mapped to observe their spatial distribution. We found that the Chi-square tests were significant when using all the states and comparing each state individually, indicating that different results exist depending on which variable is used to represent disturbance. Our results will be a useful tool to help researchers measure the magnitude and scale of disturbance since the manner in which disturbances are categorized will impact forest management plans, national and international reports of forest carbon stocks, and sequestration potential under future global change scenarios.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucia A Fitts
- Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
| | - Grant M Domke
- Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
- Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Matthew B Russell
- Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
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