9:07 p.m.
Dear IUFRO Meliaceae E-list:
Below is IUFRO Spotlight #84. Other Spotlights can be found at:
http://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
Regards,
Sheila Ward
Deputy Coordinator
IUFRO WP 1.02.04
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: IUFRO Headquarters <office(a)iufro.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 7:18 AM
Subject: IUFRO Spotlight #84 - Task Force probes 'whys' behind increased
tree mortality
To: Dear IUFRO Officeholder <mahoganyforthefuture(a)gmail.com>
[image: IUFRO Spotlight]
IUFRO Spotlight #84 - Task Force probes 'whys' behind increased tree
mortality
*IUFRO Spotlight is an initiative of the International Union of Forest
Research Organizations. Its aim is to introduce, in a timely fashion,
significant findings in forest research from IUFRO officeholders and member
organizations to a worldwide network of decision makers, policy makers and
researchers. IUFRO will encapsulate, and distribute in plain language,
brief, topical and policy-relevant highlights of those findings, along with
information on where/how to access the full documents.*
*Occasionally, IUFRO Spotlight also presents special activities such as
sessions at major IUFRO congresses or the work of the IUFRO Task Forces.
These focus on emerging key issues that contribute to international
processes and activities and are of great interest to policy makers and to
groups inside and outside the forest sector. With those criteria in mind,
the Spotlights for the next several months will highlight the undertakings
and goals of the IUFRO Task Forces. The IUFRO Spotlights will be
distributed in a periodic series of emails as well as blog postings.*
Task Force probes 'whys' behind increased tree mortality
PDF for download
<https://www.iufro.org/fileadmin/material/publications/spotlights/spotlight84-task-force-tree-mortality.pdf>
[image: Photo showing: Several trees of different species died after the
strong hot and dry period during the 2015-16 El Niño drought in Central
Amazon (photo). Now scientists are trying to understand the impacts of this
drought event, and subsequent tree mortality, on the carbon stocks in the
Amazon basin. Photo by Adriane Esquivel Muelbert]
Several trees of different species died after the strong hot and dry period
during the 2015-16 El Niño drought in Central Amazon (photo). Now
scientists are trying to understand the impacts of this drought event, and
subsequent tree mortality, on the carbon stocks in the Amazon basin. Photo
by Adriane Esquivel Muelbert
Tree mortality appears to be increasing at unprecedented rates.
One may be tempted to think: So what? Trees regenerate. They'll grow back.
But, for a lot of reasons, it's not quite that simple.
"Forests are incredibly complex ecosystems that have taken centuries – even
millennia – to establish," says Dr. Henrik Hartmann, of the Max-Planck
Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. He and four deputies,
Adriane Esquivel Muelbert, Aster Gebrekirstos, Nadine Ruehr and Bernhard
Schuldt, are coordinating IUFRO's *Monitoring Global Tree Mortality
Patterns and Trends* Task Force.
"Increased tree mortality means that forests can hold less carbon for a
shorter period of time. Therefore, there will be more carbon in the
atmosphere with known feedback dynamics on climate warming.
"The accelerating tree mortality rates may indicate a climate change risk
for forest survival. And forests are important for the Earth system and to
human welfare.
"We need to know how forests will cope with the changes we are imposing on
the Earth system." (The term "Earth system" refers to Earth's
interacting
physical, chemical, and biological processes.) That, Dr. Hartmann says, is
one of the main drivers behind his Task Force (TF).
"Trees and forests that are hundreds of years old cannot be replaced as
quickly as they disappear and the migration of trees into regions that
become suitable for establishment is much slower than the rate of
disappearance," he says.
"These ecosystems," says Dr. Adriane Muelbert, lecturer in Global Forest
Ecology at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences of the
University of Birmingham, England, "once they are gone, or when they're
permanently disturbed, may not be able to recover, or they may recover in a
very different form.
"In some cases, losing a forest may change the local conditions that
allowed the forest to establish there in the first place and the forest
will be unable to grow back."
As an example, Dr. Bernhard Schuldt points to the island of Haiti/Dominican
Republic. There, it was human actions that made forests disappear.
"Deforestation caused intense soil erosion that still hinders forest
re-establishment. There is just not enough soil to have trees regenerate
and grow to maturity.
"Examples of climate-driven forest disappearance are not as well
documented, as this is a rather recent scientific branch. There are
indications of climate-induced desertification in the southwestern U.S.,
but data are still sparse," says Dr. Schuldt, who is with the
Julius-von-Sachs-Institute of Biological Sciences, Ecophysiology and
Vegetation Ecology at the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Dr. Hartmann notes "this TF is tackling a timely and urgent topic –
potential changes in trends of global tree mortality. Our mission is to
provide an empirical basis on global tree mortality for sustainable policy
making.
"This is important because currently we have no integrated large-scale
assessment on the general state of our forests, despite many independent
studies indicating that tree mortality is increasing.
"The TF aims to provide the information needed for today's policy makers
and forest managers to ensure forest persistence for generations to come,"
Dr. Hartmann says.
[image: Photo showing: Mortality of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) near the
city of Jena, Germany. Large tracks of pine stands have died following the
2018 drought in Central Europe despite the species' high drought tolerance.
Photo by Henrik Hartmann]
Mortality of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) near the city of Jena, Germany.
Large tracks of pine stands have died following the 2018 drought in Central
Europe despite the species' high drought tolerance. Photo by Henrik
Hartmann
Recognizing the many challenges ahead for the TF, Dr. Nadine Ruehr of the
Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research at Germany's Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology in Garmisch-Partenkirchen says: "First and foremost
is to be able to reach all those who can contribute to our initiative.
Engaging with a global community is not straightforward. The real challenge
is to be truly inclusive, going beyond the academic circle and across
languages and cultures.
"Then there are huge technical and scientific challenges to harmonize
different data sets that have been collected based on a variety of
protocols."
One other challenge, noted by Dr. Aster Gebrekirstos of the World
Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya, is a lack of data from some
areas. She says: "There are regions, such as Siberia and the Congo Basin,
that are very understudied and where we have virtually no understanding of
forest dynamics. By integrating enough data from the field and satellite
observations we can understand how these forests are changing and
potentially bring attention to the community to steer more research efforts
into those areas."
"But, on the other hand," she says, "our goals would have been much more
difficult to achieve a few decades ago. Living in an era where we can
easily engage with the international community online, access satellite
data and have the necessary tools to process and store large amounts of
data, is definitely a fundamental factor to achieve our goals."
Dr. Hartmann adds: "This TF also reflects a truly global effort. We include
people from many different countries with different cultural and political
backgrounds. Their contributions will provide the input we need to make our
initiative successful in the different biomes of the world."
He says that ultimately the entire global population will benefit from the
persistence and continued existence of forests and that his TF envisions
generating a "coherent picture of global tree mortality and the causes,
which can be broadly used in research and policy making.
"Ideally, by the end of the TF's five-year 'lifespan', we will have
accessed and integrated most existing data sources on forest conditions,"
Dr. Hartmann says, "and can assess whether and where forest health is
threatened at the global, regional and local scale. That can then allow
policy makers and forest managers to make decisions that can alleviate
those threats."
*IUFRO Task Force Monitoring Global Tree Mortality Patterns and Trends: *
https://www.iufro.org/science/task-forces/tree-mortality-patterns/
*The IUFRO Task Forces are established on a temporary basis during each
5-year IUFRO Board term and focus on emerging key forest-related issues.
The nine current TFs will run till 2024 at which time their relevance will
be assessed in relation to the forest issues of the day. *
*________________________________*
The findings reported in *IUFRO Spotlight* are submitted by IUFRO
officeholders and member organizations. IUFRO is pleased to highlight and
circulate these findings to a broad audience but, in doing so, acts only as
a conduit. The quality and accuracy of the reports are the responsibility
of the member organization and the authors.
Suggestions for reports and findings that could be promoted through *IUFRO
Spotlight* are encouraged. To be considered, reports should be fresh, have
policy implications and be applicable to more than one country. If you
would like to have a publication highlighted by Spotlight, contact: Gerda
Wolfrum, wolfrum(at)iufro.org <wolfrum(a)iufro.org>.
The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) is the
only worldwide organization devoted to forest research and related
sciences. Its members are research institutions, universities, and
individual scientists as well as decision-making authorities and other
stakeholders with a focus on forests and trees.
Visit: https://www.iufro.org/
*________________________________*
*IUFRO Spotlight #84, published in November 2020*
*by IUFRO Headquarters, Marxergasse 2, 1030 Vienna, Austria. Available for
download at: **https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
<https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/>*
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