Forest ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • R. J. W. Brienen
    • , L. Caldwell
    •  & E. Gloor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez
    • , Yadvinder Malhi
    •  & Imma Oliveras

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Minxia Liang
    • , David Johnson
    •  & Xubing Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbial plant-soil feedbacks (PSF) are fundamentally important for plant diversity. The authors present a spatially explicit dynamic model that separates the effects of microbial mutualists and pathogens, thereby presenting a testable mechanistic framework to reconcile previously puzzling observations of the strength and direction of PSF with diversity maintenance.

    • John W. Schroeder
    • , Andrew Dobson
    •  & Edward Allen Herre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Lucía DeSoto
    • , Maxime Cailleret
    •  & Jordi Martínez-Vilalta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Jennifer H. Levy-Varon
    • , Sarah A. Batterman
    •  & Lars O. Hedin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Edna Rödig
    • , Nikolai Knapp
    •  & Andreas Huth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Soyeon Bae
    • , Shaun R. Levick
    •  & Jörg Müller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Charlie J. Gardner
    • , Jake E. Bicknell
    •  & Zoe G. Davies

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Atticus E. L. Stovall
    • , Herman Shugart
    •  & Xi Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Bartosz Adamczyk
    • , Outi-Maaria Sietiö
    •  & Jussi Heinonsalo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kong et al. use a global trait dataset of 800 plant species to examine the root economics spectrum in relation to root diameter, tissue density and root nitrogen concentration. Nonlinear trait relationships were observed, suggesting allometry-based nonlinearity in root trait relationships.

    • Deliang Kong
    • , Junjian Wang
    •  & Yulong Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fertilization under greenhouse warming conditions is expected to accelerate tree growth and potentially increase the biological storage of CO2. Here the authors analyse ring width measurements from 1768 conifers from the Spanish and Russian mountains and demonstrate that longevity requires slow growth rates at least in mountainous regions.

    • Ulf Büntgen
    • , Paul J. Krusic
    •  & Christian Körner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Andreas Schuldt
    • , Anne Ebeling
    •  & Nico Eisenhauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • María Uriarte
    • , Jill Thompson
    •  & Jess K. Zimmerman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Victor Danneyrolles
    • , Sébastien Dupuis
    •  & Dominique Arseneault

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There has been recent interest in understanding why the biodiversity-productivity relationship varies among studies and across scales. Here Fei et al. show that climatic variation drives forest biodiversity-productivity relationships at large spatial scales, whilst biotic and abiotic factors are important in given climate units.

    • Songlin Fei
    • , Insu Jo
    •  & Eckehard G. Brockerhoff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Cornelius Senf
    • , Dirk Pflugmacher
    •  & Rupert Seidl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • María R. Felipe-Lucia
    • , Santiago Soliveres
    •  & Eric Allan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Andreas Sommerfeld
    • , Cornelius Senf
    •  & Rupert Seidl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Loïc D’Orangeville
    • , Daniel Houle
    •  & Daniel Kneeshaw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Andreas Schuldt
    • , Thorsten Assmann
    •  & Helge Bruelheide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent measurements in the Amazon rainforest indicate missing sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Here the authors show that soil microorganisms are a strong, unaccounted source of highly reactive sesquiterpenes, a class of VOCs that can regulate ozone chemistry within the forest canopy.

    • E. Bourtsoukidis
    • , T. Behrendt
    •  & J. Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Rupert Seidl
    • , Günther Klonner
    •  & Stefan Dullinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drought impacts on tropical forest soil carbon and greenhouse gas dynamics are poorly understood. Here, the authors investigate the impacts of the 2015 drought in a forest in Puerto Rico and find that it caused shifts in soil carbon dioxide and methane emissions and led to a decrease in available phosphorus.

    • Christine S. O’Connell
    • , Leilei Ruan
    •  & Whendee L. Silver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Andreas Fichtner
    • , Werner Härdtle
    •  & Goddert von Oheimb

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Songbai Hong
    • , Shilong Piao
    •  & Hui Zeng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Davide Ascoli
    • , Giorgio Vacchiano
    •  & Andrew Hacket-Pain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Jaime Madrigal-González
    • , Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas
    •  & Miguel A. Zavala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Lan Qie
    • , Simon L. Lewis
    •  & Oliver L. Phillips

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Nathan G. Swenson
    • , Yoshiko Iida
    •  & Keping Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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

    • Fabian D. Schneider
    • , Felix Morsdorf
    •  & Michael E. Schaepman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Laura J. Sonter
    • , Diego Herrera
    •  & Britaldo S. Soares-Filho

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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

    • Jianxiao Zhu
    • , Huifeng Hu
    •  & Jingyun Fang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Haldre S. Rogers
    • , Eric R. Buhle
    •  & Joshua J. Tewksbury

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human settlements are often associated with degraded landscapes. Trant and colleagues now show that near-shore settlements in British Columbia have locally enhanced forest productivity over millennia by enriching soils with calcium and phosphorous derived from shellfish remnants.

    • Andrew J. Trant
    • , Wiebe Nijland
    •  & Brian M. Starzomski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Romain Bertrand
    • , Gabriela Riofrío-Dillon
    •  & Michel Loreau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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.

    • Renato Crouzeilles
    • , Michael Curran
    •  & José M. Rey Benayas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Safeguarding existing forests is an important ecological concern but constrains the expansion of farmland to feed the growing world population. Here the authors analyse the option space for future changes in agriculture and diets compatible with a no-deforestation goal.

    • Karl-Heinz Erb
    • , Christian Lauk
    •  & Helmut Haberl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-term stability of ecological communities is vital for maintaining ecosystem functioning. Here, Blüthgen et al. show that greater land-use intensity in grasslands and forests can have negative impacts on the stability of plant and animal communities, driven primarily by variation in asynchrony between species.

    • Nico Blüthgen
    • , Nadja K. Simons
    •  & Martin M. Gossner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest fragmentation is thought to reduce carbon storage at forest edges. Here, using remote sensing datasets, the authors show that biomass is 25% lower within 500 m of the forest edge, and suggest that fragmentation results in a global reduction in tropical forest carbon stocks by nearly 10%.

    • Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer
    • , Ivan Ramler
    •  & Henry King

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