A first assessment of the impact of the extreme 2018 summer drought on Central European forests

Large‐scale early‐wilting response of Central European forests to the 2018 extreme drought

“…Furthermore, leaf temperatures of ≥40°C, as have been measured in Switzerland and Germany during the 2018 drought, are associated with steeply increased water loss through the leaf surface and strongly declined photosynthetic activity (Schuldt et al, 2020). As…”

“…climate change, early senescence, European beech, Norway spruce, remote sensing, Sentinel-2, tree mortality see Schuldt et al, 2020 for more information). And these stress symptoms, in turn, caused significant public attention: in Germanspeaking Switzerland c. 900 newspaper articles were written about the topic during 2018 ( Figure S2).…”

The way back: recovery of trees from drought and its implication for acclimation

“…Episodes of droughts are expected to further increase in frequency and severity in many regions of the world (e.g. IPCC, 2013; Spinoni et al ., 2018), putting strong pressure on forests; global observations of drought‐induced forest decline and tree mortality already show this pressure (Allen et al ., 2010; Hartmann et al ., 2018; Schuldt et al ., 2020). Severe drought limits primary metabolic processes and tree physiological functions, and can strongly affect the whole ecosystem functioning and the ecosystem services that forests provide (Ciais et al ., 2005; McDowell et al ., 2008; Anderegg et al ., 2016).…”

Genomic basis of drought resistance inFagus sylvatica

“…Over the last two decades, increasing drought periods caused severe damage to European forests (Schuldt et al 2020;Pretzsch 2012). Conifers seem to suffer the most, but also deciduous trees were strongly affected (Schuldt et al 2020). Weather data from our study area from 1950 onwards suggested that the climatic conditions for beech trees changed dramatically during this period.…”

“…Climate change comes in many different facets, amongst which are prolonged drought periods (Christensen et al 2007). The Central European droughts in the years 2018 and 2019 caused severe water stress in many forest tree species, leading to the die-off of many trees (Schuldt et al 2020). Among the suffering tree species was European beech, Fagus sylvatica L. As one of the most common deciduous tree species in Central Europe, F. sylvatica is of great ecological importance: beech forests are a habitat for more than 6,000 different animal and plant species (Brunet et al 2010) ; Dorow et al 2010).…”