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The goal of my doctoral research was to contribute to the understanding of larch forests resilience to global change. The main conclusions of my PhD dissertation were the following:
(1) Climate change is reducing the resilience of European larch forests.
(2) European larch forests are highly resilient to mixed-severity fires.
(3) Western larch is a fire resistant species and mixed-severity fires are the main fire regime of western larch forests.
(1) In the western Italian Alps, more shifts from European larch (Larix decidua) towards other forest types are expected, especially in montane larch forests where climate continentality is milder, as a result of the natural succession that follows land abandonment. Climate warming will likely accelerate and extend these shifts to higher elevations (Moris et al. 2017a).
(2) European larch was the most abundant and dominant species regenerating in burned larch stands of the western Alps. Larch and mixed recruitment dominated the post-fire successional trajectories. The highest levels of larch regeneration were found under moderate- and high-severity fire. Fire had a positive impact on larch recruitment due to fire legacies such as open canopies and short distances to seed sources (Moris et al. 2017b).
(3) In the inland northwest US from 1985 to 2014, fire-resister forest types (i.e., western larch, ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir) experienced less fire severity than non-resister types such as lodgepole pine (fire-embracer) and subalpine fir (fire-avoider). Likewise, there is a negative relationship between bark thickness and fire severity at species level, which suggests that fire-related traits could help to predict the degree of fire resistance at large scales.
The main publications derived from this research project are listed below:
Moris JV, Reilly MJ, Yang Z, Cohen WB, Motta R, Ascoli D. 2022. Using a trait-based approach to assess fire resistance in forest landscapes of the Inland Northwest, USA. Landscape Ecology 37: 2149-2164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01478-w
Moris JV, Vacchiano G, Ravetto Enri S, Lonati M, Motta R, Ascoli D. 2017b. Resilience of European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) forests to wildfires in the western Alps. New Forests 48: 663-683. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-017-9591-7
Moris JV, Vacchiano G, Ascoli D, Motta R. 2017a. Alternative stable states in mountain forest ecosystems: the case of European larch (Larix decidua) forests in the western Alps. Journal of Mountain Science 14: 811-822. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-016-4328-1
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