Festrede zur Jahrhundertfeier der Leipziger Schlacht

geh. v. Joh. Irausche

Futur des services écosystémiques dans les forêts de montagne européennes soumises au changement climatique

International audience1. Ecosystem services (ES) from mountain forests are highly relevant for human societies. ES with a direct economic support function (e.g. timber production), regulatory services (e.g. protection from natural hazards) and cultural services (e.g. recreation) are likely to be affected strongly by a rapidly changing climate. To evaluate whether adverse climate change effects on ES can be counteracted by adapting management, dynamic models and indicatorbased assessments are needed. 2. We applied a forest dynamic model in case study areas of four European mountain regions and evaluated the future supply of four ES – timber production, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and protection against natural hazards – using state-of-the-art ES indicators. Forest dynamics were simulated under three management scenarios (no management, business-as-usual and alternative management) and five climate change projections for selected representative stand types in each region. We analysed potential trade-offs and synergies between ES and evaluated future changes among regions, forest stands, climate and management scenarios. 3. Impacts of climate change on the provision of multiple ES were found to be highly heterogeneous and to depend on the region, site and future climate. In the absence of large-scale natural disturbance (not considered), protection services, carbon stock and deadwood abundance (proxy for biodiversity) benefitted from no management in all regions. Negative impacts of climate change were evident for the provision of multiple ES but limited to the most severe climate scenarios and low-elevation stands. Synergies and trade-offs between the majority of ES were found to be sensitive to the choice of management strategy and – in some regions – to climate change. 4. Synthesis and applications. Management regimes in European mountain forests should be regionally adapted to stand and site conditions. Although in some cases alternative management regimes may be more suitable than current management for supporting multiple ecosystem services, adaptation options should be valuated carefully at the local scale due to the highly different magnitude of the impacts of climate change in different regions and along elevation gradients

Data from: Future ecosystem services from European mountain forests under climate change

Ecosystem services (ES) from mountain forests are highly relevant for human societies. ES with a direct economic support function (e.g. timber production), regulatory services (e.g. protection from natural hazards) and cultural services (e.g. recreation) are likely to be affected strongly by a rapidly changing climate. To evaluate whether adverse climate change effects on ES can be counteracted by adapting management, dynamic models and indicator-based assessments are needed. We applied a forest dynamic model in case study areas of four European mountain regions and evaluated the future supply of four ES – timber production, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and protection against natural hazards – using state-of-the-art ES indicators. Forest dynamics were simulated under three management scenarios (no management, business-as-usual and alternative management) and five climate change projections for selected representative stand types in each region. We analysed potential trade-offs and synergies between ES and evaluated future changes among regions, forest stands, climate and management scenarios. Impacts of climate change on the provision of multiple ES were found to be highly heterogeneous and to depend on the region, site and future climate. In the absence of large-scale natural disturbance (not considered), protection services, carbon stock and deadwood abundance (proxy for biodiversity) benefitted from no management in all regions. Negative impacts of climate change were evident for the provision of multiple ES but limited to the most severe climate scenarios and low-elevation stands. Synergies and trade-offs between the majority of ES were found to be sensitive to the choice of management strategy and – in some regions – to climate change. Synthesis and applications. Management regimes in European mountain forests should be regionally adapted to stand and site conditions. Although in some cases alternative management regimes may be more suitable than current management for supporting multiple ecosystem services, adaptation options should be evaluated carefully at the local scale due to the highly different magnitude of the impacts of climate change in different regions and along elevation gradients

Value-based ecosystem service trade-offs in multi-objective management in European mountain forests

Mountain forests provide a diverse range of ecosystem services (ES). In case of conflicting ES, trade-offs must be considered in forest resource planning. In this study, simulation-based scenario analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis is used to analyse expected utilities and value-based trade-offs in multi-objective forest management related to four key ES (timber production, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, protection against gravitational hazards) in three European mountain regions. In each case study area a set of management alternatives including no-management were simulated over 100 years and ES quantified using ES indicators. Multifunctional goal scenarios are employed to aggregate partial ES utilities, accumulated RMSE between ES are used to quantify trade-offs. In two analysed case study areas no-management generated highest ES utilities for biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and protection against gravitational hazards. Alternatives based on small-scale silviculture combined timber production and biodiversity conservation very well. In all case study areas increasing goal preferences for timber production or biodiversity and nature conservation result in increasing overall trade-offs with rather decreasing overall utilities. In all case study areas the analysed managements support multiple ES and can thus be considered as multifunctional. Based on the presented analysis management alternatives could be further improved

<i>Quercus petraea</i> (Matt.) Liebl. from the Thayatal National Park in Austria: Selection of Potentially Drought-Tolerant Phenotypes

The increasing demand for climate-adapted seeds and planting material poses a challenge due to the limited availability, particularly for tree species such as oaks. National parks, known for their large-standing diversity and a wide range of habitats, can serve as valuable sources for identifying trees suitable for both the initiation of tree breeding and conservation strategies. This study aimed to identify valuable forest genetic resources of the Thayatal National Park in Austria by selecting potentially drought-tolerant phenotypes. For this purpose, we selected 404 mature trees of Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl. from eight populations growing on medium to dry sites in eight populations. Further, we characterized them for autochthony, genetic structure, genetic diversity using genetic markers (plastid- and nuclear-SSRs) and estimated their age. Finally, we applied wood core analysis to estimate tree response to historical drought events to identify the possible drought-tolerant phenotypes. The age of the trees ranged from 29 to 245 years (as of the year 2023). All Q. petraea trees were inhabiting a plastid haplotype 17a, autochthonous for this area. Nevertheless, the genetic structure estimated by ten nuSSRs revealed a pronounced structure in the dataset, largely caused by young trees exhibiting lower genetic diversity. A total of 85 elite potentially drought-tolerant trees were finally selected based on their morphological response (resistance, recovery ability, resilience, and relative resilience) to three historical drought events (1992–1994, 1947, 1917). The intrinsic water use efficiency and its difference (iWUE and DWiWUE), estimated by isotope analysis of δ13C of latewood in wet (1987) and dry (1994) years, did not correlate with any of the drought response traits (Rt, Rc, Rs, rRs). We discuss the further use of the selected oak trees for the establishment of seed stands and orchards to enhance seed production and the integration of other omics approaches, such as large-scale high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTPP) and transcriptomics, for in-depth analyses of drought tolerance of selected phenotypes

Corrigendum to ’evaluating five forest models using multi-decadal inventory data from mountain forests’

ISSN:0304-3800ISSN:1872-7026ISSN:0167-889

Simulated ecosystem services indicators with the ForClim model

List of ecosystem service indicator values for each simulated year (2010-2100/2150) for representative stand types (RST) in the four case study areas (CSA). The data were generated with the climate-sensitive forest succession model FORCLIM, an open-access software which is available for download through the Chair of Forest Ecology at ETH Zürich (https://uwis-server102.ethz.ch/openaccess/). Column headings are described in the associated ReadMe file

Evaluating five forest models using multi-decadal inventory data from mountain forests

Forest ecosystem models, being widespread science tools and used for forest management decision support are usually evaluated individually against field data sets, while model intercomparison and joint evaluation studies are rare. We tested five forest models according to a harmonized protocol against data from nine forest compartments in the Snĕžnik region, in Slovenia. The suite of models included stand- and landscape-scale, empirical- and process-based models used across Europe. The test dataset originated from inventory data covering 50 years (tree measurements 1963, 1983 and 2013) and included annual harvesting records at tree level. Uncertainties in data and forest conditions were considered by defining 12 scenarios varying initial regeneration, browsing pressure and harvest modalities. We evaluated the models` ability to initialize forest conditions accurately, whether management interventions could be implemented based on harvest records, and how well basal area and diameter structure could be predicted. Simulation results for basal area development showed good to satisfactory performance for all models, at which SAMSARA2, SIBYLA and PICUS showed the best agreement. Comparison of simulated and observed diameter distributions showed good performance of ForClim, PICUS, SAMSARA2 and SIBYLA. Model output variability was between 6% and 24%, indicating the relevance to consider uncertainties that can be attributed to specific sources. There was no clear hierarchy between more empirical or more process-based models regarding accuracy of stand development projections. The cohort-based landscape model LandClim showed the lowest stand-level accuracy and scenario sensitivity, but results nevertheless qualified it for complementary application at landscape scale. Within individual-based models, spatially explicit models seemed to be more suitable for heterogeneous mixed mountain forests. The findings demonstrated the usefulness of inventory datasets for model testing and intercomparison.ISSN:0304-3800ISSN:1872-7026ISSN:0167-889

Evaluating five forest models using multi-decadal inventory data from mountain forests

Forest ecosystem models, being widespread science tools and used for forest management decision support are usually evaluated individually against field data sets, while model intercomparison and joint evaluation studies are rare. We tested five forest models according to a harmonized protocol against data from nine forest compartments in the Sn%žnik region, in Slovenia. The suite of models included stand- and landscape-scale, empirical- and process-based models used across Europe. The test dataset originated from inventory data covering 50 years (tree measurements 1963, 1983 and 2013) and included annual harvesting records at tree level. Uncertainties in data and forest conditions were considered by defining 12 scenarios varying initial regeneration, browsing pressure and harvest modalities. We evaluated the models` ability to initialize forest conditions accurately, whether management interventions could be implemented based on harvest records, and how well basal area and diameter structure could be predicted. Simulation results for basal area development showed good to satisfactory performance for all models, at which SAMSARA2, SIBYLA and PICUS showed the best agreement. Comparison of simulated and observed diameter distributions showed good performance of ForClim, PICUS, SAMSARA2 and SIBYLA. Model output variability was between 6% and 24%, indicating the relevance to consider uncertainties that can be attributed to specific sources. There was no clear hierarchy between more empirical or more process-based models regarding accuracy of stand development projections. The cohort-based landscape model LandClim showed the lowest stand-level accuracy and scenario sensitivity, but results nevertheless qualified it for complementary application at landscape scale. Within individual-based models, spatially explicit models seemed to be more suitable for heterogeneous mixed mountain forests. The findings demonstrated the usefulness of inventory datasets for model testing and intercomparison