The anthropogenic imprint on temperate and boreal forest demography and carbon turnover.

Autor: Pugh TAM; Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science Lund University Lund Sweden.; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science University of Birmingham Birmingham UK.; Birmingham Institute of Forest Research University of Birmingham Birmingham UK., Seidl R; Ecosystem dynamics and forest management group Technical University of Munich Freising Germany.; Berchtesgaden National Park Berchtesgaden Germany., Liu D; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science University of Birmingham Birmingham UK.; Birmingham Institute of Forest Research University of Birmingham Birmingham UK.; Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research University of Vienna Vienna Austria., Lindeskog M; Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science Lund University Lund Sweden., Chini LP; Department of Geographical Sciences University of Maryland College Park Maryland USA., Senf C; Ecosystem dynamics and forest management group Technical University of Munich Freising Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology [Glob Ecol Biogeogr] 2024 Jan; Vol. 33 (1), pp. 100-115. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Oct 16.
DOI: 10.1111/geb.13773
Abstrakt: Aim: The sweeping transformation of the biosphere by humans over the last millennia leaves only limited windows into its natural state. Much of the forests that dominated temperate and southern boreal regions have been lost and those that remain typically bear a strong imprint of forestry activities and past land-use change, which have changed forest age structure and composition. Here, we ask how would the dynamics, structure and function of temperate and boreal forests differ in the absence of forestry and the legacies of land-use change?
Location: Global.
Time Period: 2001-2014, integrating over the legacy of disturbance events from 1875 to 2014.
Major Taxa Studied: Trees.
Methods: We constructed an empirical model of natural disturbance probability as a function of community traits and climate, based on observed disturbance rate and form across 77 protected forest landscapes distributed across three continents. Coupling this within a dynamic vegetation model simulating forest composition and structure, we generated estimates of stand-replacing disturbance return intervals in the absence of forestry for northern hemisphere temperate and boreal forests. We then applied this model to calculate forest stand age structure and carbon turnover rates.
Results: Comparison with observed disturbance rates revealed human activities to have almost halved the median return interval of stand-replacing disturbances across temperate forest, with more moderate changes in the boreal region. The resulting forests are typically much younger, especially in northern Europe and south-eastern North America, resulting in a 32% reduction in vegetation carbon turnover time across temperate forests and a 7% reduction for boreal forests.
Conclusions: The current northern hemisphere temperate forest age structure is dramatically out of equilibrium with its natural disturbance regimes. Shifts towards more nature-based approaches to forest policy and management should more explicitly consider the current disturbance surplus, as it substantially impacts carbon dynamics and litter (including deadwood) stocks.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
(© 2023 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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