Forest adaptation to climate change—is non-management an option?

Abstract

& Key message Climate change is posing a considerable challenge to foresters. The intensity of required adaptive measures and the relevance of old-growth forests as benchmark for managed forests are debated. Forest managers need to make decisions on stand treatment that are based on climatological and biological parameters with high uncertainties. We provided the conceptual basis for adaptive forest management and provide a number of case studies that reflect the options and limitations of ways of coping with climate change. The examples are derived from the experience of the authors. We conclude that only few forest types are either not strongly affected by climate change or do not require immediate adaptations of forest management. Many productive forests have stand properties that are decisively shaped by past management decisions, such as tree species composition, age distribution, rotation period, and stand structure. Maintaining these properties under the influence of climate change requires continuous and even increasing efforts of forest managers.

Contrasting vulnerability of monospecific and species‐diverse forests to wind and bark beetle disturbance: The role of management

“…Conversely, we found that the forest managed for diversity showed lower disturbance rates even without applying any other measures (i.e., without the salvage removals and rotation length reduction). These findings Consistent with previous studies, we found that the change in tree species composition toward a higher proportion of less vulnerable and site-adapted species has paramount importance in managing forests under climate change (Jandl et al, 2019). Diverse ecosystems generally show lower disturbance rates compared with monospecific forests (Griess et al, 2012;Neuner et al, 2015) and are also superior in the provisioning of ecosystem services (Mori, 2017).…”

European beech stem diameter grows better in mixed than in mono-specific stands at the edge of its distribution in mountain forests

“…Indeed, beech is the dominant tree species in large parts of temperate Europe and a typical example of a late-successional canopy tree, including remarkable shade tolerance at early life stages (Nagel et al 2014;Leuschner and Ellenberg 2017). In areas where beech and mixed mountain forests were transformed into more productive conifer forests, dominated by Norway spruce, recent biotic damage and summer droughts have decreased the productivity of Norway spruce (Marini et al 2012;Jandl et al 2019), highlighting the need for alternative forestry systems. Despite its competitive ability and phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental disturbances (Pretzsch and Schütze 2005;Stojnić et al 2018), beech may also suffer from increasing evaporative demand and decreasing water supply (Tognetti et al 2019), potentially reducing the productivity of pure stands (Maselli et al 2014).…”

Forest land use discontinuity and northern red oak Quercus rubra introduction change biomass allocation and life strategy of lingonberry Vaccinium vitis-idaea

“…In the age of high interest in forest ecosystem services (Maes et al 2012;Dickie et al 2014;Felipe-Lucia et al 2018)and discussion about usage of alien tree species as alternatives to native species (Thurm et al 2018;Jandl et al 2019) which are susceptible to climate change, our results clearly indicate disruption of ecosystem services provided by an important understory plant. Similarly to other studies of Q. rubra effects on biodiversity (Woziwoda et al 2014a, Chmura 2020, ecosystem services (Woziwoda et al 2019b) and natural regeneration of native woody species (Woziwoda et al 2019a), we argue that Table 2).…”