Forest Health and Global Change

Forest Health and Global Change

Trumbore, Susan, Paulo Brando, and Henrik Hartmann
Science 349, no. 6250 (2015): 814-818

“Forests have evolved while experiencing disturbances such as drought, windthrow (when trees are uprooted or overthrown by wind), insect and disease outbreaks, and fire. However, forests worldwide increasingly must also cope with human-related intensification of stressors that affect forest condition, either directly through logging and clearing or indirectly through climate change, air pollution, and invasive species. These novel disturbances alter forest communities and environmental conditions outside the ranges in which current forests evolved and occur too fast for evolutionary adaptation processes to keep pace. Thus, the future of global forests will be determined by the trajectory of complex forest system responses to multiple stressors that span local to global scales.”

— Houlton et al.