SREL Reprint #3678

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

Alessandra De Marco1, Pierre Sicard2, Zhaozhong Feng3, Evgenios Agathokleous3, Rocio Alonso4, Valda Araminiene5, Algirdas Augustatis6, Ovidiu Badea7,8, James C. Beasley9, Cristina Branquinho10, Viktor J. Bruckman11, Alessio Collalti12, Rakefet David-Schwartz13, Marisa Domingos14, Enzai Du15, Hector Garcia Gomez4, Shoji Hashimoto16, Yasutomo Hoshika17, Tamara Jakovljevic18, Steven McNulty19, Elina Oksanen20, Yusef Omidi Khaniabadi21, Anne-Katrin Prescher22, Costas J. Saitanis23, Hiroyuki Sase24, Andreas Schmitz25, Gabriele Voigt26, Makoto Watanabe27, Michael D. Wood28, Mikhail V. Kozlov29, and Elena Paoletti16

1ENEA, CR Casaccia, SSPT-PVS, Rome, Italy
2ARGANS, Biot, France
3Key Laboratory of Agro-Meteorology of Jiangsu Province, School of Applied Meteorology,
Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China
4Ecotoxicology of Air Pollution, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
5Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Kaunas, Lithuania
6Faculty of Forest Sciences and Ecology, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
7"Marin Drăcea" National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry, Voluntari, Romania
8Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, "Transilvania" University, Braşov, Romania
9Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources,
University of Georgia, Aiken, South Carolina, USA
10Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências,
Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
11Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
12Forest Modeling Lab., ISAFOM-CNR, Perugia, Italy
13Institute of Plant Sciences, ARO–Volcani Center, Rishon LeTsiyon, Israel
14Instituto de Botanica, Nucleo de Pesquisa em Ecologia, Sao Paulo, Brazil
15Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
16Department of Forest Soils, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan
17IRET-CNR, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
18Croatian Forest Research Institute, Jastrebarsko, Croatia
19USDA Forest Service, Research Triangle Park, USA
20Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
21Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Industrial Medial and Health,
Petroleum Industry Health Organization (PIHO), Ahvaz, Iran
22Thuenen Institute of Forest Ecosystems, Eberswalde, Germany
23Lab of Ecology and Environmental Science, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece
24Ecological Impact Research Department, Asia Center for Air Pollution Research (ACAP), Niigata, Japan
25State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia,
Recklinghausen, Germany
26r.e.m. Consulting, Perchtoldsdorf, Austria
27Institute of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), Fuchu, Japan
28School of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Salford, Salford, UK
29Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

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.

Keywords: air pollution, climate change, forest ecosystem, forest nutrients, forest research roadmap, forest vulnerability, radioactivity

SREL Reprint #3678

De Marco, A., P. Sicard, Z. Feng, E. Agathokleous, R. Alonso, V. Araminiene, A. Augustatis, O. Badea, J. C. Beasley, C. Branquinho, V. J. Bruckman, A. Collalti, R. David-Schwartz, M. Domingos, E. Du, H. G. Gomez, S. Hashimoto, Y. Hoshika, T. Jakovljevic, S. McNulty, E. Oksanen, Y. O. Khaniabadi, A. K. Prescher, C. J. Saitanis, H. Sase, A. Schmitz, G. Voigt, M. Watanabe, M. D. Wood, M. V. Kozlov, and E. Paoletti. 2022. Strategic roadmap to assess forest vulnerability under air pollution and climate change. Global Change Biology 28(17): 5062-5085.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).