Limits and opportunities in predicting drought-induced forest mortality / Future of the ITMN network and your active role – let’s talk about it in our open community meetings! / ITMN: Have your say on the future of the network

About the talk

Limits and opportunities in predicting drought-induced forest mortality

Jordi Martínez-Vilalta

Hotter and drier conditions under ongoing climate change are causing tree mortality events and altering forest dynamics worldwide. Although the mechanisms involved are relatively well understood at the level of plant organs, predicting the occurrence of abrupt mortality episodes at landscape scales remains a massive research challenge. I will discuss this apparent paradox highlighting the limitations of current approaches, which rely almost exclusively on the use of traits and process-based modelling. These are powerful approaches but also face important challenges due to the multiplicity of positive and negative feedbacks that operate over time and across levels of organization, resulting in a strong scale- and context-dependency of trait effects on individual performance and vegetation dynamics. I will argue that better predictions require multi-scale approaches that complement the essentially reductionistic view based on traits with systems thinking. Current developments of forest monitoring schemes through continuous, on-site measurements of key physiological state variables, which can be consolidated and shared in global research networks, together with enhanced remote sensing tools provide excellent opportunities to reconcile our detailed mechanistic understanding at fine scales (e.g., ecophysiology) with patterns and processes at coarser scales.

Future of the ITMN network and your active role – let’s talk about it in our open community meetings!

Future of the ITMN Network

After several years of joint progress, it is time to reflect on what we have achieved together and to hear your ideas for the future of the network.Instead of our regular seminar series, we hold a set of open community meetings to learn what matters most to you and where you would like ITMN to go next. We would also love to hear from anyone interested in taking a more active role in the ITMN.

ITMN: Have your say on the future of the network

Here’s the recording of our seminar!

You are invited to fill in the form to learn what matters most to you, what worked well/did not, and where you would like ITMN to go next. We would also love to hear from anyone interested in taking a more active role in the ITMN.