Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany.
Institute for Silviculture, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Peter-Jordan-Str. 82, 1190, Vienna, Austria.
Nat Commun. 2018 Nov 26;9(1):4978. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07539-6.
Mortality is a key indicator of forest health, and increasing mortality can serve as bellwether for the impacts of global change on forest ecosystems. Here we analyze trends in forest canopy mortality between 1984 and 2016 over more than 30 Mill. ha of temperate forests in Europe, based on a unique dataset of 24,000 visually interpreted spectral trajectories from the Landsat archive. On average, 0.79% of the forest area was affected by natural or human-induced mortality annually. Canopy mortality increased by +2.40% year, doubling the forest area affected by mortality since 1984. Areas experiencing low-severity mortality increased more strongly than areas affected by stand-replacing mortality events. Changes in climate and land-use are likely causes of large-scale forest mortality increase. Our findings reveal profound changes in recent forest dynamics with important implications for carbon storage and biodiversity conservation, highlighting the importance of improved monitoring of forest mortality.
死亡率是森林健康的一个关键指标，死亡率的增加可以作为全球变化对森林生态系统影响的预警信号。在这里，我们根据来自 Landsat 存档的 24000 个经过视觉解释的光谱轨迹的独特数据集，分析了 1984 年至 2016 年间欧洲超过 3000 万公顷温带森林的林冠死亡率趋势。平均而言，每年有 0.79%的森林面积受到自然或人为引起的死亡率的影响。林冠死亡率每年增加 2.40%，自 1984 年以来，受死亡率影响的森林面积增加了一倍。经历低严重度死亡率的区域比受林分替换死亡率事件影响的区域增加得更强烈。气候和土地利用的变化可能是大规模森林死亡率增加的原因。我们的研究结果揭示了近期森林动态的深刻变化，对碳储存和生物多样性保护具有重要意义，凸显了加强森林死亡率监测的重要性。
