Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience

In the face of dramatic climate change and human pressure acting on remaining forest areas across tropical, temperate and boreal biomes, there has emerged a coordinated effort to identify and protect forests that are currently considered “intact”. These forests are hypothesized to be more resilient...

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Main Authors: Alexandra C. Morel, Sandra Nogué
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00057/full
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author Alexandra C. Morel
Alexandra C. Morel
Sandra Nogué
author_facet Alexandra C. Morel
Alexandra C. Morel
Sandra Nogué
author_sort Alexandra C. Morel
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description In the face of dramatic climate change and human pressure acting on remaining forest areas across tropical, temperate and boreal biomes, there has emerged a coordinated effort to identify and protect forests that are currently considered “intact”. These forests are hypothesized to be more resilient to future abiotic perturbations than fragmented or degraded forests, and therefore, will provide more reliable carbon storage and/or biodiversity services into an uncertain future. Research in the fields of contemporary and paleoecology can offer valuable insights to enhance our ability to assess resilience of forests and whether these would be comparable across forest biomes. Contemporary ecological monitoring has been able to capture processes acting over the short-to-medium term, while paleoecological methods allow us to derive insights of the long-term processes affecting forest dynamics. Recent efforts to both identify intact forests, based on area definitions, and assess vegetation climate sensitivity globally have relied on satellite imagery analysis for the time period 2000–2013. In this paper, we compare these published datasets and do find that on average intact forests in boreal and tropical biomes are less sensitive to temperature and water availability, respectively; however, the patterns are less clear within biomes (e.g., across continents). By taking a longer perspective, through paleoecology, we present several studies that show a range of forest responses to past climatic and human disturbance, suggesting that short-term trends may not be reliable predictors of long-term resilience. We highlight that few contemporary and paleoecology studies have considered forest area when assessing resilience and those that have did find that smaller forest areas exhibited greater dynamism in species composition, which could be a proxy for declining resilience. Climatic conditions in the Anthropocene will be pushing forest systems across biomes into novel climates very rapidly and with current knowledge it is difficult to predict how forests will react in the immediate term, which is the most relevant timeframe for global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
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spelling doaj.art-2349409f9ff34ee9bddc9ca9c7f259ff2022-12-22T02:02:03ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Forests and Global Change2624-893X2019-09-01210.3389/ffgc.2019.00057462135Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest ResilienceAlexandra C. Morel0Alexandra C. Morel1Sandra Nogué2Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, United KingdomSchool of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomSchool of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton, Hampshire, United KingdomIn the face of dramatic climate change and human pressure acting on remaining forest areas across tropical, temperate and boreal biomes, there has emerged a coordinated effort to identify and protect forests that are currently considered “intact”. These forests are hypothesized to be more resilient to future abiotic perturbations than fragmented or degraded forests, and therefore, will provide more reliable carbon storage and/or biodiversity services into an uncertain future. Research in the fields of contemporary and paleoecology can offer valuable insights to enhance our ability to assess resilience of forests and whether these would be comparable across forest biomes. Contemporary ecological monitoring has been able to capture processes acting over the short-to-medium term, while paleoecological methods allow us to derive insights of the long-term processes affecting forest dynamics. Recent efforts to both identify intact forests, based on area definitions, and assess vegetation climate sensitivity globally have relied on satellite imagery analysis for the time period 2000–2013. In this paper, we compare these published datasets and do find that on average intact forests in boreal and tropical biomes are less sensitive to temperature and water availability, respectively; however, the patterns are less clear within biomes (e.g., across continents). By taking a longer perspective, through paleoecology, we present several studies that show a range of forest responses to past climatic and human disturbance, suggesting that short-term trends may not be reliable predictors of long-term resilience. We highlight that few contemporary and paleoecology studies have considered forest area when assessing resilience and those that have did find that smaller forest areas exhibited greater dynamism in species composition, which could be a proxy for declining resilience. Climatic conditions in the Anthropocene will be pushing forest systems across biomes into novel climates very rapidly and with current knowledge it is difficult to predict how forests will react in the immediate term, which is the most relevant timeframe for global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00057/fullintact forest landscapesresiliencetropical forestboreal forestpaleoecologyclimate sensitivity
spellingShingle Alexandra C. Morel
Alexandra C. Morel
Sandra Nogué
Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
intact forest landscapes
resilience
tropical forest
boreal forest
paleoecology
climate sensitivity
title Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
title_full Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
title_fullStr Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
title_full_unstemmed Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
title_short Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience
title_sort combining contemporary and paleoecological perspectives for estimating forest resilience
topic intact forest landscapes
resilience
tropical forest
boreal forest
paleoecology
climate sensitivity
url https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00057/full
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