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Forests are multifaceted ecosystems that perform an array of essential functions that both directly and indirectly impact humanity. They act as a nexus of the Earth system’s climate, hydrology and biogeochemical cycles. This function is all the more relevant in the Anthropocene, an epoch characterised by humanity’s impact on our planet, given the vast amounts of carbon locked up in tree biomass that help buffer against anthropogenic carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Forests are also hubs of biodiversity that provide essential resources and services to communities, but they are vulnerable to degradation and deforestation. The study of forests, which also includes their restoration, conservation and sustainable use, thus encompasses a broad suite of scientific disciplines, and research in this field is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary.
This collection has been curated by the Earth science and Ecology editorial teams at Nature Communications in the hope that it will provide a helpful resource for researchers and decision makers in this increasingly interdisciplinary field. The collection is divided into four themes: climate-forest feedbacks, the forest-human interface, the forest carbon sink, and communities and ecosystems. This collection will be updated with new research and opinion pieces on a regular basis.
The editorial accompanying this collection discusses our evolving history with forests and how science can guide us towards living sustainably with these key ecosystems.
How the water use efficiency of trees changes with atmospheric CO2 variations has mostly been studied on short time scales. Here, a newly compiled data set covering 1915 to 1995 shows how rates of change in water use efficiency vary with location and rainfall over the global tropics on a decadal scale.
The impacts of forest fire activity in the western US on snow melt are poorly quantified. Here the authors use satellite and field-based observations to document a four-fold increase in the solar forcing on snow in western burned forests from 1999 to 2018.
Drivers of spatial differences in leaf phenology are not as widely studied as temporal differences. Here the authors show that the spatial variation of leaf unfolding in 8 deciduous tree species in Europe can be explained by local adaptation to long-term mean climate conditions.
Increased extreme wet and dry years and forest growth loss from drought legacy effect lead to a question whether wetness events can conversely compensate for this loss. Here the authors report substantial growth enhancement after extreme wetness compensating for drought-induced growth loss globally.
Northern tree populations may not benefit under climate change, with implications for assisted migration and range expansion. Here, Isaac-Renton et al. show that leading-edge lodgepole pine populations have fewer characteristics of drought-tolerance, so may not adapt to tolerate drier conditions.
Sampling strategies may bias tree-ring datasets to not accurately represent the regional response to climate change. Here, Klesse et al. use a new representative dataset to show that the International Tree-Ring Data Bank in the U.S. Southwest overestimates climate sensitivity of forests by 41–59%
Understanding the role of forest fires in Earth’s climate system is critical to predict future fire-climate interactions. Here the authors show that fire-induced forest loss accounts for ~15% of global forest loss and that its impact on surface temperature depends on evapotranspiration and albedo.
Drought is intensifying due to climate change, impacting forests globally. Here, the authors track nearly 2 million trees through severe drought and show that tree height is the greatest predictor of mortality risk, suggesting that the tallest trees may be the most vulnerable.
Forest soil is known to be a source of the greenhouse gas N2O, but the impact of what is planted in that soil has long been overlooked. Here Machacova and colleagues quantify seasonal N2O fluxes from common boreal tree species in Finland, finding that all trees are net sources of this gas.
Many models assume a universal carbon use efficiency across forest biomes, in contrast to assumptions of other process-based models. Here the authors analyse forest production efficiency across a wide range of climates to show a positive relationship with annual temperature and precipitation, indicating that ecosystem models are overestimating forest carbon losses under warming.
The productivity of boreal forests in Eastern North America is predicted to increase with warming under sufficient moisture supply. Here D’Orangeville et al. study seven tree species and predict that growth enhancements may be seen up to 2 °C warming, but would decline if temperatures exceed this.
The effect of plants on future extreme heat events under elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) is unclear. Here, the authors show that CO2 plant physiological effects lead to increases in heat waves within a suite of climate model simulations, suggesting that vegetated areas are at risk of increased heat extremes.
It has been suggested that tree phenology may be regulated by climatic oscillations. Here, Detto et al. present a 30 year tropical forest dataset that suggests leaf and fruit production is coordinated with ENSO cycles, with greater leaf fall observed prior to El Niño followed by greater seed production.
Depending on where and when it occurs, vegetation cover change can affect local climate by altering the surface energy balance. Based on satellite data, this study provides the first data-driven assessment of such effects for multiple vegetation transitions at global scale.
Deforestation carbon emissions from the Brazilian Amazon have declined steeply, but how much drought-induced forest fire emissions add to this process is still unclear. Here the authors show that gross emissions from forest fires are more than half as great as those from deforestation during drought years.
Plant growing season increases under a warming climate, but it is not known whether this will alter plant exposure to frost days. Here Liu et al. investigate trends in the Northern Hemisphere over 30 years and find increased exposure to frost days in regions that have longer growing seasons.
The climate impacts of deforestation due to changes in biogenic volatile organic compound emissions, which act as short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), are poorly understood. Here the authors show that including the impact SLCFs increases the projected warming associated with idealised deforestation scenarios.
Climate oscillations affect weather on different temporal-spatial scales, which poses difficulty in understanding how they influence tree reproduction. Here Ascoli et al. show relationships between low- and high-frequency components of the NAO and masting in two European tree species across multiple decades.
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) drives biological responses in terrestrial ecosystems through oscillatory modes of climatic variability. Here, the authors show how landscape scale productivity responses to NAO are contingent upon the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in southwestern Europe.
Drought has a major influence on plant distribution. Here, Swenson et al. show that a similar gene expression response to experimental drought outperforms traditional functional traits and phylogenetic relatedness as a predictor of co-occurrence of tree species in a natural stand.
Relatively little is understood about seasonal effect of climate change on the Amazon rainforest. Here, the authors show that Amazon forest loss in response to dry-season intensification during the last glacial period was likely self-amplified by regional vegetation-rainfall feedbacks.
Forests impact continental-scale moisture recycling, but their impact on regional-scale cloud cover is little known. Here, using satellite observations, Teulinget al. illustrate enhanced cloud cover over regional forested areas in western Europe due to the establishment of a forest-breeze circulation.
Many species show a time-lagged response to climate change, a phenomenon called climatic debt. Here, Bertrand and colleagues show that climate severity and plant tolerance to climate warming mainly influence the climatic debt of forest herbaceous plant communities.
The defaunation of vertebrates may disrupt forest functioning through the loss of plant-animal interactions, but impacts on forests remain unquantified. Here the authors show that seed dispersal is a key interaction and defaunation of primates and birds negatively impacts forest regeneration.
The magnitude of greenhouse gas emissions from land use change on tropical peatlands is unclear. Here, the authors measure greenhouse gas fluxes throughout the conversion from peat swamp forest to oil palm plantation, and estimate the contribution to regional and global emissions.
Separating anthropogenic and climatic impacts on forest compositions can be challenging due to a lack of data. Here the authors look at forest compositional changes in eastern Canada since the 19th century and find land use has most strongly shaped communities towards disturbance-adapted species.
Southeast Asia’s forests play important roles in the society, but the region is a deforestation hotspot. Here, the authors examined the future changes in the region’s forests under different scenarios and found that by 2050 under a regional rivalry/rocky road scenario, the region’s forests would shrink by 5.2 million ha.
Managing forests for the supply of multiple ecosystem services (ES) is key given potential trade-offs among services. Here, the authors analyse how forest stand attributes generate trade-offs among ES and the relative contribution of forest attributes and environmental factors to predict services.
Climate change may impact forest disturbances, though local variability is high. Here, Sommerfeld et al. show that disturbance patterns across the temperate biome vary with agents and tree traits, yet large disturbances are consistently linked to warmer and drier than average conditions.
Assisted migration has been proposed to aid trees in altering their ranges under climate change. Here, Montwé et al. use common garden experiments to show that lodgepole pine populations vary in their cold susceptibility, suggesting seed transfer may increase the risk of frost damage.
Salvage logging has become a common practice to gain economic returns from naturally disturbed forests, but it could have considerable negative effects on biodiversity. Here the authors use a recently developed statistical method to estimate that ca. 75% of the naturally disturbed forest should be left unlogged to maintain 90% of the species unique to the area.
As modern humans migrated out of Africa, they encountered novel habitats. Here, Wedage et al. study the archaeological site of Fa-Hien Lena in Sri Lanka and show that the earliest human residents of the island practiced specialized hunting of small mammals, demonstrating ecological plasticity.
Rainforest conversion to plantations driven by global demand for agricultural products generates high environmental costs. Here, the authors show that the high oil palm plantation production efficiency is associated with decreased carbon storage and slower organic matter cycling that affect ecosystem services.
Expansion of rubber plantations threatens tropical forest carbon stocks and biodiversity, but may be dis-incentivised using carbon finance. Here, Warren-Thomas et al. use forest and agricultural data for Cambodia to show that carbon prices of $30–$51 per tCO2 are needed to match forest protection costs.
Afforestation is often used to increase terrestrial carbon sequestration and restore ecosystem services. Here, the authors show that afforestation can also neutralize soil pH by lowering pH in alkaline soil but raising pH in acid soil, thus further promoting the restoration of ecosystem functions.
The expansion of agriculture and rangelands can cause ecological spillover effects across cultivated-natural ecosystem boundaries. Here, Luskin et al. show irruptions of oil palm-subsidized wild boar alter the abundance and diversity of understory trees >1 km into a primary forest reserve in Malaysia.
Land use and land cover change has led to more frequent hot, dry summers in parts of the mid-latitudes. Here the authors use an Earth system model to show that regions converted to crops and pastures experience hot, dry summers 2 to 4 times more frequently than they would if native forests had remained.
Industrial mining contributes to deforestation in the Amazon, and the extent of effect could occur beyond areas of land explicitly permitted for mining. Here, Sonter et al. show that deforestation in 70-km buffer zones around mines has led to an estimated 9% of Brazilian Amazon deforestation since 2005.
Small-scale farmers in Southeast Asia are increasingly turning to monocultures of oil palm and rubber to maximize income. Clough and colleagues demonstrate that this land-use change in Indonesia comes at a cost to a wide array of ecosystem functions and biodiversity.
China’s Grain for Green Program is the world’s largest reforestation program, encompassing tens of millions of hectares since 1999. Here, Hua et al. show that the majority of areas have been reforested with tree monocultures, but that planting mixed forests could increase animal biodiversity without imposing additional economic costs.
Restoration of degraded ecosystems is known to enhance biodiversity and vegetation structure. Using a global meta-analysis, Crouzeilles et al. identify the drivers of restoration success in forest ecosystems at both the local and landscape scales.
The universality of the trade-off between early growth and lifespan in trees and its implications are disputed. Analysing a global tree ring dataset and performing data-driven simulations, the authors demonstrate the pervasiveness of the trade-off and challenge current earth system models that predict a continuation of the carbon sink into mature forests under warming and increasing CO2.
Warming is expected to increase C sink capacity in high-latitude ecosystems, but plant-herbivore interactions could moderate or offset this effect. Here, Silfver and colleagues test individual and interactive effects of warming and insect herbivory in a field experiment in Subarctic forest, showing that even low intensity insect herbivory strongly reduces C sink potential.
Improving estimates of forest biomass based on remote sensing data is important to assess global carbon cycling. Here the authors develop an approach to use forest gap models to simulate lidar waveforms and compare the outputs with ICESAT-1 GLAS profiles, showing improved estimates across the Amazon basin.
Forest management may play an important role in climate change mitigation. Here, Tong et al. combine remote sensing and machine learning modelling to map forest cover dynamics in southern China during 2002–2017, showing effects on carbon sequestration that are extensive but of uncertain longevity and possible negative impact on soil water.
Understanding mechanisms of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition and stabilisation improves soil-climate feedback predictions. Here the authors show that roots in boreal forest promote organic nitrogen economy and provide a framework on how roots affect decomposition and stabilisation of SOM.
The balance between CO2 sequestration by forests and soil N2O emissions is poorly constrained. Here, the authors use a theoretical model to demonstrate that symbiotic N2-fixing trees can either mitigate climate change or exacerbate it relative to non-fixing trees.
Historical and future trends in net primary productivity (NPP) and its sensitivity to global change are largely unknown because of the lack of long-term, high-resolution data. Here the authors show that tree-ring isotopes can be used for inferring interannual variability and long-term changes in NPP.
The contribution of symbiotic dinitrogen fixation to the forest carbon sink could change throughout forest succession. Here the authors model nitrogen cycling and light competition between trees based on data from Panamanian forest plots, showing that fixation contributes substantially to the carbon sink in early successional stages.
It is unclear whether CO2-stimulation of photosynthesis can propagate through slower ecosystem processes and lead to long-term increases in terrestrial carbon. Here the authors show that CO2-stimulation of photosynthesis leads to a 30% increase in forest regrowth over a decade of CO2 enrichment.
The impact of nitrogen availability on carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems under climate change is understudied. Here the authors project that increases in N availability over the 21st century associated with warmer soils and the legacy of past N fertiliser use on abandoned croplands will be the primary drivers of a 21st century net carbon sink in Northern Eurasia.
Boreal conifers regulate photosynthesis to maximize seasonal growth while limiting damage due to light and cold stress. Here Yang et al. show that two major conifer species achieve this via different means as Scots pine, but not Norway spruce, activates alternative electron sinks during spring.
Forests of the Amazon Basin have experienced frequent and severe droughts in recent years with significant impacts on their carbon cycling. Here, using satellite LiDAR samples from 2003 to 2008, the authors show the long-term legacy of these droughts with persistent loss of carbon stocks after the 2005 drought.
Degradation—the loss of carbon stored in intact woodland—is very difficult to measure over large areas. Here, the authors show that carbon emissions from degradation in African woodlands greatly exceed those from deforestation, but are happening alongside widespread increases in biomass in remote areas.
The recovery of North American forests is likely to impact their capacity as a carbon sink. Here, Zhu et al. show a growth in aboveground biomass in various climate change scenarios, with these forests expected to sequester no more than 22% more carbon than current levels by the 2080s.
Invasive alien pests can cause large-scale forest mortality and release carbon stored in forests. Here the authors show that climate change increases the potential range of alien pests and that their impact on the carbon cycle could be as severe as the current natural disturbance regime in Europe’s forests.
The existence of a pan-tropical forest carbon sink remains uncertain due to the lack of data from Asia. Here, using direct on-the-ground observations, the authors confirm remaining intact forests in Borneo have provided a long-term carbon sink, but carbon net gains are vulnerable to drought and edge effects.
Reliable estimates of the total forest carbon (C) pool are lacking due to insufficient information on dead organic matter (DOM). Here, the authors estimate that the current DOM C stock in China is 925 ± 54 Tg and that it grew by 6.7 ± 2.2 Tg C/yr over the past two decades primarily due to increasing forest area
Vast quantities of carbon stored in tropical forests are threatened by deforestation. Here, using high resolution satellite data, Brincket al. examine how edge effects influence carbon emissions and they find an additional 10.3 Gt of carbon are released by deforestation when including fragmentation effects.
Defaunation is linked to the decline of tree species that depend on large animals for seed dispersal, but it is unclear if this affects carbon storage. Here the authors show that defaunation effects on carbon storage vary across continents, driven by relationships between seed dispersal strategies and adult tree size.
Site-level quantification of Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) and associated components rely on eddy covariance and biometric methods. Here these techniques are compared for global forest carbon fluxes, revealing differences in NEP, but similar estimates of ecosystem respiration and gross primary production.
Different aspects of biodiversity may not necessarily converge in their response to climate change. Here, the authors investigate 25-year shifts in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of tropical forests along a spatial climate gradient in West Africa, showing that drier forests are less stable than wetter forests.
The Janzen-Connell hypothesis posits that seedlings may be less likely to establish near conspecifics due to shared natural enemies. Here, Jia et al. show that tree species traits determine whether fungal pathogens or insect herbivores inhibit seedling recruitment and survival in a temperate forest.
Tree diversity decreases at the edges of fragmented forests. Here, Krishnadas et al. find that weaker top-down regulation by insects and fungal pathogens during seedling recruitment contributes to reduced tree seedling diversity near forest edges in a human-modified landscape.
Satellite-borne radar systems are promising tools to obtain spatial habitat data with complete geographic coverage. Here the authors show that freely available Sentinel-1 radar data perform as well as standard airborne laser scanning data for mapping biodiversity of 12 taxa across temperate forests in Germany.
Increases in tree mortality can signal changes in forest health, but large-scale tree mortality is difficult to quantify. Here Senf et al. show large-scale increases in forest mortality in Central Europe over the past 30 years, which were related to increasing growing stocks and temperature.
Associations with mycorrhizal fungi can affect the outcome of plant competition in complex ways. Here the authors use a decade-long field survey and two hyphal exclusion experiments to reveal a critical role of underground fungal networks in facilitating seedling growth and fitness of ectomycorrhizal plants but not arbuscular mycorrhizal plants.
Given the potential for increasingly common and intense tropical storms, it is important to understand their effects on island forest communities. Here, the authors show that Hurricane María’s strength and rainfall had larger effects on tree mortality than other less severe storms, and that large trees and species with low-density wood were most susceptible.
Resilience to drought is crucial for tree survival under climate change. Here, DeSoto et al. show that trees that died during drought were less resilient to previous dry events compared to surviving conspecifics, but the resilience strategies differ between angiosperms and gymnosperms.
Though biodiversity is expected to be important in productivity in tree communities, there is little empirical evidence of this at local scales. Here, Fichtner et al. show that higher neighbourhood species richness increased tree growth, explaining over half of the variation in community productivity.
Here, Schuldt et al. collate data from two long-term grassland and forest biodiversity experiments to ask how plant diversity facets affect the diversity of higher trophic levels. The results show that positive effects of plant diversity on consumer diversity are mediated by plant structural and functional diversity, and vary across ecosystems and trophic levels.
Tree mortality has been shown to be the dominant control on carbon storage in Amazon forests, but little is known of how and why Amazon forest trees die. Here the authors analyse a large Amazon-wide dataset, finding that fast-growing species face greater mortality risk, but that slower-growing individuals within a species are more likely to die, regardless of size.
Biodiversity change can impact ecosystem functioning, though this is primarily studied at lower trophic levels. Here, Schuldt et al. find that biodiversity components other than tree species richness are particularly important, and higher trophic level diversity plays a role in multifunctionality.
As remote sensing technology improves, it is now possible to map fine-scale variation in plant functional traits. Schneider et al. remotely sense tree functional diversity, validate with field data, and reveal patterns of plant adaptation to the environment previously not retrievable from plot data
Earth system model simulations of future climate in the Amazon show little agreement. Here, the authors show that biases in internally generated climate explain most of this uncertainty and that the balance between water-saturated and water-limited evapotranspiration controls the Amazon resilience to climate change.
Deforestation and edge effects around cleared areas impact forest stability. Here, the authors examine human impacts on Amazonian forest-savanna bistability and show that tree cover bimodality is enhanced in regions close to human activities and is nearly absent in regions unaffected by human activities.
Dust is an important nutrient source to landscapes, but often the source of dust is poorly constrained. Here, the authors quantify the origin of different dust sources in the Sierra Nevada by analysing dust composition and suggest exogenic dust may drive nutrient budgets in montane ecosystems.
Invasive brown treesnakes decimated the forest bird community on the island of Guam. Now, Rogers and colleagues document the indirect effects of the snake on trees, linking snake-initiated bird loss to reduced seed dispersal and plant recruitment on Guam compared to nearby uninvaded islands.
Land use becomes more diverse when it considers uncertain interactions of multiple ecosystem services. Here, Knoke and colleagues show that uncertainty plays a larger role if ecosystem services are optimized only for a single service, or if services correlate.
How biodiversity is linked to multiple ecosystem functions is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that a new mechanism, which they term the 'jack-of-all-trades' effect, best explains patterns of tree diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality in European forests.