Optimizing stand density for climate-smart forestry: A way forward towards resilient forests with enhanced carbon storage under extreme climate events

Future for trees and forests

“…An example is LIDAR (from "LIght Detection of Lasar Imaging And Ranging", image Figure 7a) using laser pulses to digitize trees (Van Der Zee et al 2021) and forests (Sterck et al 2022), which bares the potential to evaluate, for example, the effects of crown shape on the resilience of trees to drought and heatwaves. Other examples include the rapid developments in the analysis of DNA and RNA, used to identify fungi and bacterial communities and their role in the carbon, nutrient and/or water cycles in forest soils (Sterck et al 2021) and dead wood (Yang et al 2022). And, finally, by equipping satellites (Reiche et al 2016) and drones (D'Odorico et al 2021) with ever improving sensors, promising steps are set to improve our ability to monitor the dynamics and drought stress of forests at local and regional scales (Figure 7c-d).…”

“…Forests therefore become more frequently disturbed by human action. And last but not least, nitrogen deposition causes soil acidification and reduces soil fertility, with negative implications for long-term forest productivity (de Vries et al 2021). All these threats culminate in an uncertain future for forests.…”

“…Let me end this presentation with a summary of my ambitions for the coming years. First, this experiment will allow us to test our hypothesis (Figure 8, Sterck et al 2021)) and thus better understand drought and stand density effects on trees, soils and forests. Second, we will develop, validate and promote two CSF-products for forest managers.…”

“…Figure 11. An illustration of the major nutrient, water and carbon fluxes measured in our forest experiment, for better understanding forest management effects on forests (adapted fromSterck et al 2021 and. For explanation, see text.…”

Optimizing conditions of mycelial inoculum immobilized in Ca-alginate beads: a case study in ectomycorrhizal fungus Astraeus odoratus

“…Climate change is a well-established reality that results in extreme weather events impacting our daily lives (IPCC 2023; Nunes et al 2020). Forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change by absorbing CO 2 and storing carbon in their biomass and soils (Waring et al 2020;Sterck et al 2021). While forest trees absorb CO 2 molecules, they do not do this solely by themselves.…”