Emerging signals of declining forest resilience under climate change

Forest ecosystems depend on their capacity to withstand and recover from natural and anthropogenic perturbations (that is, their resilience) 1 . Experimental evidence of sudden increases in tree mortality is raising concerns about variation in forest resilience 2 , yet little is known about how it i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) Vol. 608; no. 7923; pp. 534 - 539
Main Authors: Forzieri, Giovanni, Dakos, Vasilis, McDowell, Nate G., Ramdane, Alkama, Cescatti, Alessandro
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 18.08.2022
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
704/106
704/158/2165
Acclimatization
Anthropogenic factors
Aridity
Biodiversity and Ecology
Boreal forests
Carbon
Carbon dioxide
Carbon Dioxide - metabolism
Climate and vegetation
Climate change
Climate Change - history
Climate Change - statistics & numerical data
climate change ecology
Climate effects
climate sciences
Climate variability
Divergence
Ecology, environment
Ecosystems
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Fertilization
Forest ecosystems
Forestry
Forests
History, 21st Century
Humanities and Social Sciences
Life Sciences
Machine Learning
Models, Biological
multidisciplinary
Perturbation
Productivity
Resilience
Satellite Imagery
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Taiga
Temperate forests
Temperature
Terrestrial ecosystems
Time series
Trees - growth & development
Trees - metabolism
Trends
Vegetation
Vegetation index
Water - analysis
Water - metabolism
ISSN:0028-0836, 1476-4687, 1476-4687
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Forest ecosystems depend on their capacity to withstand and recover from natural and anthropogenic perturbations (that is, their resilience) 1 . Experimental evidence of sudden increases in tree mortality is raising concerns about variation in forest resilience 2 , yet little is known about how it is evolving in response to climate change. Here we integrate satellite-based vegetation indices with machine learning to show how forest resilience, quantified in terms of critical slowing down indicators 3 – 5 , has changed during the period 2000–2020. We show that tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience, probably related to increased water limitations and climate variability. By contrast, boreal forests show divergent local patterns with an average increasing trend in resilience, probably benefiting from warming and CO 2 fertilization, which may outweigh the adverse effects of climate change. These patterns emerge consistently in both managed and intact forests, corroborating the existence of common large-scale climate drivers. Reductions in resilience are statistically linked to abrupt declines in forest primary productivity, occurring in response to slow drifting towards a critical resilience threshold. Approximately 23% of intact undisturbed forests, corresponding to 3.32 Pg C of gross primary productivity, have already reached a critical threshold and are experiencing a further degradation in resilience. Together, these signals reveal a widespread decline in the capacity of forests to withstand perturbation that should be accounted for in the design of land-based mitigation and adaptation plans.
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USDOE
PNNL-SA-177011; PNNL-SA-178330
European Commission (EC)
AC05-76RL01830
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04959-9