The REINFFORCE network presented at the conference “Managing forests in the 21st century”
Addressing the need to increase the adaptation and mitigation capacity of European forests to climate change impacts, the conference “Managing forests in the 21st century” brought together scientific experts on the forest management from all over Europe. The aim was to discuss and improve the understanding of the role of forests and forest management in the context of climate change.
The conference took place at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and was organized by the research projects FORMASAM, REFORCE, and FOREXCLIM.
More than 100 scientists participated in discussions on the impacts of climate extreme and disturbances, the management challenges for resilient forests, and the contribution of forest management to climate change mitigation.
During this conference, Hernán Serrano-León presented the REINFFORCE network on behalf of IEFC. REINFFORCE is a strategic infrastructure network designed to provide forest managers with empirical evidence and help in the selection of adapted material under a future climate that will differ from the present conditions. As the current productive species and management might not be adapted to the future climate conditions, the productivity and mitigation capacity of our productive forests will be at risk, hence impacting the provision by forests of different ecosystem services.
The presentation also included the first published results from REINFFORCE, based on the research led by António Correia with the support of Christophe Orazio. The REINFFORCE results provide evidence that both native and exotic species will face different trade-offs under climate change, between potential growth gains and increased mortality risk. Further long-term research and experimental analyses are required to answer the potential of these alternative regeneration materials to provide future multiple ecosystem services.
Ref : Correia HA et al. 2018. Early survival and growth plasticity of 33 species planted in 38 arboreta across the European Atlantic area. Forests 2018, 9(10), 630; doi:10.3390/f9100630
Authors: Henrique António Correia; Helena Maria Almeida; Manuela Branco; Margarida Tomé; Rebeca Cordero Montoya; Luisa Di Lucchio; Alejandro Cantero; Julio Casero; Cristina Prieto; Felipe Bravo; Nahia Gartzia; Ander Arias; Richard Jinks; Eric Paillassa; Patrick Pastuszka; María José Rozados Lorenzo; Javier Francisco Silva Pando; María Carmen Traver; Silvia Zabalza; Carina Nóbrega; Miguel Ferreira; Christophe Orazio
Author: Hernán Serrano-León