AI Article Synopsis
- Forests in Europe cover about one-third of the continent and play a crucial role in climate protection by sequestering carbon and providing various ecosystem services.
- A comprehensive study analyzed 415 long-term experiments and found that overall forest growth has significantly accelerated since the late 19th century, although there are regional differences in growth trends.
- In particular, Scots pine shows strong growth increases in Northern Europe, declines in the Southwest, and less pronounced changes across Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, indicating the need for adaptive forest management based on regional conditions.
Article Abstract
Forests cover about one-third of Europe's surface and their growth is essential for climate protection through carbon sequestration and many other economic, environmental, and sociocultural ecosystem services. However, reports on how climate change affects forest growth are contradictory, even for same regions. We used 415 unique long-term experiments including 642 plots across Europe covering seven tree species and surveys from 1878 to 2016, and showed that on average forest growth strongly accelerated since the earliest surveys. Based on a subset of 189 plots in Scots pine (the most widespread tree species in Europe) and high-resolution climate data, we identified clear large-regional differences; growth is strongly increasing in Northern Europe and decreasing in the Southwest. A less pronounced increase, which is probably not mainly driven by climate, prevails on large areas of Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The identified regional growth trends suggest adaptive management on regional level for achieving climate-smart forests.
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Source |
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10505178 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41077-6 | DOI Listing |
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