Structural and Compositional Disturbance Legacies Mediate the Resistance of European Forests to Repeated Disturbances

IF 6 1区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ECOLOGY

Global Ecology and Biogeography Pub Date : 2025-08-29 DOI:10.1111/geb.70106

Niko Kulha, Georges Kunstler, Björn Reineking, Mikko Peltoniemi, Juha Honkaniemi, Kari T. Korhonen, Paloma Ruiz-Benito, Miguel A. Zavala, Pedro Rebollo, Julien Barrere

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Aim

Climate change is altering forest disturbance regimes across Europe. Structural and species diversity are generally thought to enhance disturbance resistance. However, how disturbances affect stand structure and tree species diversity remains untested across broad spatial gradients and for multiple disturbance agents. Furthermore, determining how disturbance-induced changes affect resistance to subsequent disturbances is critical for understanding forest dynamics in the face of global change.

Location

The forests of Finland, France and Spain.

Time Period

1986–2020 ce.

Major Taxa Studied

Trees.

Methods

We examined the effects of tree size and tree species diversity on resistance to fire, wind, biotic and snow disturbances using a National Forest Inventory dataset of 4827 disturbed plots. We quantified disturbance resistance as the tree mortality response to different severity disturbances. We modelled the immediate disturbance-driven changes in structural and tree species diversity, and predicted how these changes affect resistance to subsequent disturbances.

Results

High structural diversity increased stand resistance to snow disturbance, and high species diversity decreased resistance to fire. Severe disturbances consistently decreased structural and species diversity across all disturbance agents. However, both diversity metrics increased after low severity snow disturbances, and structural diversity increased after low severity biotic disturbance. Resistance to subsequent disturbance increased after low severity fire and low to moderate severity wind disturbances. Biotic and snow disturbance had the opposite effect, with moderate severity disturbances decreasing resistance to subsequent disturbance more than low severity disturbances.

Main Conclusions

Structural and species diversity had little effect on plot-level disturbance resistance. Severe disturbances consistently decreased structural and species diversity, while low to moderate severity disturbances can increase these diversities. Resistance to subsequent disturbance is contrasted between disturbance agents and disturbance severity. Increasing disturbance severity may decrease structural and species diversity in future forests.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

结构和成分干扰遗产介导了欧洲森林对重复干扰的抵抗

气候变化正在改变整个欧洲的森林破坏制度。结构和物种多样性通常被认为增强了对干扰的抵抗力。然而，干扰如何影响林分结构和树种多样性仍未经过广泛的空间梯度和多种干扰因子的测试。此外，确定扰动引起的变化如何影响对后续扰动的抵抗力，对于理解面对全球变化的森林动态至关重要。芬兰、法国和西班牙的森林。时间：1986-2020年主要分类群研究树木。方法利用4827个干扰样地的国家森林清查数据，研究了树木大小和树种多样性对火灾、风、生物和雪干扰的影响。我们将扰动抗性量化为树木对不同程度扰动的死亡率响应。我们模拟了结构和树种多样性的直接干扰驱动的变化，并预测了这些变化如何影响对后续干扰的抵抗力。结果高结构多样性增加了林分对雪干扰的抵抗力，高物种多样性降低了林分对火的抵抗力。严重的干扰持续降低所有干扰因子的结构和物种多样性。然而，在低严重程度的积雪干扰后，这两个多样性指标都增加了，而在低严重程度的生物干扰后，结构多样性增加了。在低强度的火灾和低到中等强度的风扰动后，对后续扰动的抵抗力增加。生物干扰和积雪干扰的效果相反，中等严重干扰比低严重干扰更能降低对后续干扰的抵抗力。主要结论结构和物种多样性对小区抗扰能力影响不大。严重的干扰持续降低结构和物种多样性，而低到中等严重的干扰可以增加这些多样性。对后续干扰的抵抗力在干扰剂和干扰严重程度之间进行了对比。干扰程度的增加可能会降低未来森林的结构和物种多样性。

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来源期刊

Global Ecology and Biogeography 环境科学-生态学

CiteScore

12.10

自引率

3.10%

发文量

170

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Global Ecology and Biogeography (GEB) welcomes papers that investigate broad-scale (in space, time and/or taxonomy), general patterns in the organization of ecological systems and assemblages, and the processes that underlie them. In particular, GEB welcomes studies that use macroecological methods, comparative analyses, meta-analyses, reviews, spatial analyses and modelling to arrive at general, conceptual conclusions. Studies in GEB need not be global in spatial extent, but the conclusions and implications of the study must be relevant to ecologists and biogeographers globally, rather than being limited to local areas, or specific taxa. Similarly, GEB is not limited to spatial studies; we are equally interested in the general patterns of nature through time, among taxa (e.g., body sizes, dispersal abilities), through the course of evolution, etc. Further, GEB welcomes papers that investigate general impacts of human activities on ecological systems in accordance with the above criteria.