Beech forests in Europe are severely threatened by climate change, particularly in southern European countries, but also in central Europe.
Beech forests in Europe are severely threatened by climate change, particularly in southern European countries, but also in central Europe. Models project severe beech growth declines over the next 70 years – ranging from 20 percent to perhaps more than 50 percent depending on the climate change scenario and the region in question. "We expect high productivity declines due to increased drought severity, especially at the southern limits of the beech's distribution range," said Dr. Edurne Martinez del Castillo from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). She warns that this will seriously affect both the environment and forestry and urgently recommends that measures be taken to adapt the forests. Furthermore, beech forests are crucial stores of carbon dioxide. The models are based on tree ring analyses from all over Europe using well-established climate scenarios. The study was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and has now been published in Communications Biology.
Tree Rings From 324 Sites in Europe Examined
Beech is one of the most important trees in the forests of Europe. Beech forests are both economically important and ecologically highly valuable. Almost 100 beech forest regions in 18 European countries are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. However, climate change could place severe pressure on stocks in the future, both in geographical and ecological terms. Evidence of this has already been published in regional studies, but to date no comprehensive analysis has been conducted.
Edurne Martinez del Castillo, a member of Professor Jan Esper’s Climatology Group at Mainz University, has now investigated this development for the species Fagus sylvatica, together with cooperation partners from 32 scientific institutions. They performed over 780,000 tree ring measurements on 5,800 trees at 324 sites across Europe, from the north of Scotland to mainland Greece. This data allowed them to analyze the growth rates of the trees over the past six decades, enabling them to forecast likely trends in the future.
Read more at Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz
Photo Credit: Polifoto via Pixabay
