Monitoring mortality in a semiarid forest under the influence of prolonged drought in Zagros region

Gheitury, Mohammad; Heshmati, Mosayeb; Noroozi, Ali Akbar; Ahmadi, Mehdi; Parvizi, Yahya

doi:10.1007/s13762-020-02638-8

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…At global scale, the main drivers of these greening developments are found to be CO 2 fertilization, nitrogen deposition, climate change, and land use changes 91,[93][94][95] . However, especially the widely positive vegetation growth trends in the Zagros Mountains, still seem to be in contrast to the widely reported dieback of the Zagros Oak tree forests [96][97][98][99][100] . Besides a potential role of CO 2 fertilization, land use changes might have played the biggest role.…”

Section: Agricultural Areas and Associated Vegetation Growthmentioning

confidence: 91%

Interrelations of vegetation growth and water scarcity in Iran revealed by satellite time series

Behling

Roessner

Foerster

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Iran has experienced a drastic increase in water scarcity in the last decades. The main driver has been the substantial unsustainable water consumption of the agricultural sector. This study quantifies the spatiotemporal dynamics of Iran’s hydrometeorological water availability, land cover, and vegetation growth and evaluates their interrelations with a special focus on agricultural vegetation developments. It analyzes globally available reanalysis climate data and satellite time series data and products, allowing a country-wide investigation of recent 20+ years at detailed spatial and temporal scales. The results reveal a wide-spread agricultural expansion (27,000 km$$^2$$ 2 ) and a significant cultivation intensification (48,000 km$$^2$$ 2 ). At the same time, we observe a substantial decline in total water storage that is not represented by a decrease of meteorological water input, confirming an unsustainable use of groundwater mainly for agricultural irrigation. As consequence of water scarcity, we identify agricultural areas with a loss or reduction of vegetation growth (10,000 km$$^2$$ 2 ), especially in irrigated agricultural areas under (hyper-)arid conditions. In Iran’s natural biomes, the results show declining trends in vegetation growth and land cover degradation from sparse vegetation to barren land in 40,000 km$$^2$$ 2 , mainly along the western plains and foothills of the Zagros Mountains, and at the same time wide-spread greening trends, particularly in regions of higher altitudes. Overall, the findings provide detailed insights in vegetation-related causes and consequences of Iran’s anthropogenic drought and can support sustainable management plans for Iran or other semi-arid regions worldwide, often facing similar conditions.

show abstract

Section: Agricultural Areas and Associated Vegetation Growthmentioning

confidence: 91%

Interrelations of vegetation growth and water scarcity in Iran revealed by satellite time series

Behling

Roessner

Foerster

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hotter droughts have been associated with most of the massive mortality events, and both pathogens and pests have been reported in most of them (Figure 3). Some of the most severe recent mortality events are results of the combined effects of hotter droughts, bark beetles, and fungal pathogens (Worrall et al, 2008(Worrall et al, , 2010Klockow et al, 2018;Gheitury et al, 2020). The combination between hotter droughts and bark beetles (Breshears et al, 2005;Floyd et al, 2009;Millar et al, 2012;de La Serrana et al, 2015;Kharuk et al, 2019) as well as hotter droughts and pathogens (Holuša et al, 2018;Wood et al, 2018) have also resulted in severe losses.…”

Section: Tree Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the importance of the abiotic stresses such as nutrient toxicity and deficiencies, soil salinity and acidity, radiation extremes as well as the biotic stresses such as parasitic plants and mammalian herbivory, we limit our observations to the interactions of pests and pathogens with heat and drought stresses. These combinations represent the most important biotic-abiotic stress interactions inflicting the most damage (Breshears et al, 2005;Carnicer et al, 2011;Fettig et al, 2019;Gheitury et al, 2020), and their impact is increasing as they are strongly affected by global climate change (McDowell et al, 2018). As a result, most of the studies also focus on these interactions (Desprez-Loustau et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Threat of the Combined Effect of Biotic and Abiotic Stress Factors in Forestry Under a Changing Climate

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Plants encounter several biotic and abiotic stresses, usually in combination. This results in major economic losses in agriculture and forestry every year. Climate change aggravates the adverse effects of combined stresses and increases such losses. Trees suffer even more from the recurrence of biotic and abiotic stress combinations owing to their long lifecycle. Despite the effort to study the damage from individual stress factors, less attention has been given to the effect of the complex interactions between multiple biotic and abiotic stresses. In this review, we assess the importance, impact, and mitigation strategies of climate change driven interactions between biotic and abiotic stresses in forestry. The ecological and economic importance of biotic and abiotic stresses under different combinations is highlighted by their contribution to the decline of the global forest area through their direct and indirect roles in forest loss and to the decline of biodiversity resulting from local extinction of endangered species of trees, emission of biogenic volatile organic compounds, and reduction in the productivity and quality of forest products and services. The abiotic stress factors such as high temperature and drought increase forest disease and insect pest outbreaks, decrease the growth of trees, and cause tree mortality. Reports of massive tree mortality events caused by “hotter droughts” are increasing all over the world, affecting several genera of trees including some of the most important genera in plantation forests, such as Pine, Poplar, and Eucalyptus. While the biotic stress factors such as insect pests, pathogens, and parasitic plants have been reported to be associated with many of these mortality events, a considerable number of the reports have not taken into account the contribution of such biotic factors. The available mitigation strategies also tend to undermine the interactive effect under combined stresses. Thus, this discussion centers on mitigation strategies based on research and innovation, which build on models previously used to curb individual stresses.

show abstract

Seedling biochemical and ecophysiological traits improved under the patch-canopy microhabitats of medium-sized oak trees in a semi-arid forest

Asadi-Rad

Heydari

Hosseinzadeh

et al. 2022

Trees

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Monitoring mortality in a semiarid forest under the influence of prolonged drought in Zagros region

Cited by 12 publications

References 19 publications

Interrelations of vegetation growth and water scarcity in Iran revealed by satellite time series

Interrelations of vegetation growth and water scarcity in Iran revealed by satellite time series

The Threat of the Combined Effect of Biotic and Abiotic Stress Factors in Forestry Under a Changing Climate

Seedling biochemical and ecophysiological traits improved under the patch-canopy microhabitats of medium-sized oak trees in a semi-arid forest

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About