Search Results

Factsheet: Climate change and urban forests

Urban forests can both help reduce climate change and help urban society cope with its impacts.

Factsheet: Climate change adaptation

The changing climate is affecting our trees, forests and woodlands, how they grow and survive and the important ecosystem services they provide. For our forests and woodlands to thrive, adaptation measures must be considered carefully, and action taken. Ten measures to reduce climate risks and improve resilience are presented.

Factsheet: Climate change and tree diseases (canker)

Canker-inducing pathogens kill the inner, living bark of trees resulting in poorer growth or mortality of affected individuals which limits their contribution to climate change mitigation.

Factsheet: Climate change and tree diseases (Phytophthora)

Milder and wetter winters, followed by increased spring rainfall, are likely to enhance the survival and infection potential of many tree pathogens. Hotter, drier summers leading to drought stress in trees will also increase their susceptibility to disease and expand the distribution range of some pathogens. The increased incidence and severity of diseases caused by Phytophthora species reduces the benefits that trees provide, including climate change mitigation.

First report of Phytophthora pluvialis in Europe causing resinous cankers on western hemlock

This is the first report of P. pluvialis in Europe. This is also the first published report of P. pluvialis causing resinous cankers on western hemlock worldwide.

Threshold Response to Extreme Drought Shifts Inter-Tree Growth Dominance in Pinus sylvestris

Many studies quantify short-term drought impact on tree growth relative to pre-drought growth averages. However, fewer studies examine the extent to which droughts of differing severity differentially impact tree growth or shape stand dynamics. Focusing on three droughts in high and low density stands of Pinus sylvestris in Scotland, we calculated pre-drought growth averages using […]

Life after recovery: Increased resolution of forest resilience assessment sheds new light on post-drought compensatory growth and recovery dynamics

Understanding the impacts of extreme drought on forest productivity requires a comprehensive assessment of tree and forest resilience. However, current approaches to quantifying resilience limit our understanding of forest response dynamics, recovery trajectories and drought legacies by constraining the temporal scale and resolution of assessment. We compared individual tree growth histories with growth forecasted using […]

Comparison of the carbon, water, and energy balances of mature stand and clear-fell stages in a British Sitka spruce forest and the impact of the 2018 drought

Sitka spruce is the major conifer species in British upland forests and is predominantly managed as even-aged, single-species plantations with rotation lengths of less than 50 years using a “patch clear-felling” system. Evidence on the impact of clear-felling on the carbon, water and energy balances of plantation forestry is sparse and extreme weather events, such […]

Public perspectives of treescape creation, expansion, management and maintenance (a review)

This review aims to answer the question “what are the public perspectives of woodland creation, expansion, management and maintenance?” (where woodland is taken to refer to trees in any location and context). Using a combination of structured search strings and key word searches, the search process uncovered 81 relevant publications from 15 countries, published between 1996 and 2021 (inclusive). Given the policy ambitions for tree planting and woodland expansion across Great Britain, from the United Kingdom (UK), Welsh and Scottish Governments, the findings from this review are timely. The findings provide valuable evidence of possible public reactions to new planting, afforestation and changes to management, and identify gaps in the evidence where further work is required.

The devil is in the detail: Metabarcoding of arthropods provides a sensitive measure of biodiversity response to forest stand composition compared with surrogate measures of biodiversity

We investigated whether biodiversity information obtained from DNA metabarcoding of mass-trapped arthropods and from a range of taxa-based surrogate measures of biodiversity (e.g. carabid beetles, vascular plants) provide: 1) similar estimates of alpha and beta diversity and 2) provide similar forest management related conclusions. We also explored how well habitat-based surrogate measures of biodiversity (e.g. stand structure, volume of deadwood) predict observed biodiversity patterns.

Using genome resequencing to investigate racial structure, genetic diversity, sexual reproduction and hybridisation in the pine pathogen Dothistroma septosporum

Genome sequencing is used to determine the origins and genetic diversity of Dothistroma populations throughout the UK, and confirms the findings of our earlier paper discerning population structure with microsatellite analysis.

Metabarcoding reveals a high diversity of woody host-associated Phytophthora spp. in soils at public gardens and amenity woodlands in Britain

A study of Phytophthora diversity in public gardens and amenity woodlands through the use of metabarcoding of soil samples.