Climate change amplifies the interactions between wind and bark beetle disturbances in forest landscapes.

ABSTRACT:

Context

Growing evidence suggests that climate change could substantially alter forest disturbances. Interactions between individual disturbance agents are a major component of disturbance regimes, yet how interactions contribute to their climate sensitivity remains largely unknown.

Objectives

Here, our aim was to assess the climate sensitivity of disturbance interactions, focusing on wind and bark beetle disturbances.

Methods

We developed a process-based model of bark beetle disturbance, integrated into the dynamic forest landscape model iLand (already including a detailed model of wind disturbance). We evaluated the integrated model against observations from three wind events and a subsequent bark beetle outbreak, affecting 530.2 ha (3.8 %) of a mountain forest land

SUBMITTER: Seidl R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5494037 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature