Strategic roadmap to assess forest vulnerability under air pollution and climate change

De Marco, Alessandra; Sicard, Pierre; Feng, Zhaozhong; Agathokleous, Evgenios; Alonso, Rocio; Araminiene, Valda; Augustatis, Algirdas; Badea, Ovidiu; Beasley, James C.; Branquinho, Cristina; Bruckman, Viktor J.; Collalti, Alessio; David‐Schwartz, Rakefet; Domingos, Marisa; Du, Enzai; Garcia Gomez, Hector; Hashimoto, Shoji; Hoshika, Yasutomo; Jakovljevic, Tamara; McNulty, Steven; Oksanen, Elina; Omidi Khaniabadi, Yusef; Prescher, Anne‐Katrin; Saitanis, Costas J.; Sase, Hiroyuki; Schmitz, Andreas; Voigt, Gabriele; Watanabe, Makoto; Wood, Michael D.; Kozlov, Mikhail V.; Paoletti, Elena

Abstract

Although it is an integral part of global change, most of the research addressing the effects of climate change on forests have overlooked the role of environmental pollution. Similarly, most studies investigating the effects of air pollutants on forests have generally neglected the impacts of climate change. We review the current knowledge on combined air pollution and climate change effects on global forest ecosystems and identify several key research priorities as a roadmap for the future. Specifically, we recommend (1) the establishment of much denser array of monitoring sites, particularly in the South Hemisphere; (2) further integration of ground and satellite monitoring; (3) generation of flux‐based standards and critical levels taking into account the sensitivity of dominant forest tree species; (4) long‐term monitoring of N, S, P cycles and base cations deposition together at global scale; (5) intensification of experimental studies, addressing the combined effects of different abiotic factors on forests by assuring a better representation of taxonomic and functional diversity across the ~73,000 tree species on Earth; (6) more experimental focus on phenomics and genomics; (7) improved knowledge on key processes regulating the dynamics of radionuclides in forest systems; and (8) development of models integrating air pollution and climate change data from long‐term monitoring programs.

Citation

De Marco, A., Sicard, P., Feng, Z., Agathokleous, E., Alonso, R., Araminiene, V., …Paoletti, E. (2022). Strategic roadmap to assess forest vulnerability under air pollution and climate change. Global Change Biology, 28(17), 5062-5085. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16278

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 18, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jun 21, 2022
• Publication Date: Jun 21, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 2, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 2, 2022
• Journal: Global Change Biology
• Print ISSN: 1354-1013
• Publisher: Wiley
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 17
• Pages: 5062-5085
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16278
• Keywords: General Environmental Science, Ecology, Environmental Chemistry, Global and Planetary Change
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16278
• Additional Information: Funders : Academy of Finland;European Commission;JST SICORP;US Department of Energy; Projects : 276671;311929;316182;LIFE15 ENV/IT/000183;LIFE19 ENV/FR/000086;LIFE20 GIE/IT/000091;JPMJSC16HB;DE‐EM0005228