各种属性森林对干旱胁迫的响应研究进展

全球气候变化的背景下,干旱事件的发生频率、强度和持续时间不断增加,增加了森林生态系统面临的风险,探讨森林对干旱胁迫响应的规律与特征是生态学领域研究的热点。以干旱的定量表达为切入点,总结和归纳了评估森林对干旱响应的常见指标、评估方法和应用案例,特别是梳理了各种属性(如林龄、冠层高度等)的森林对干旱胁迫响应的差异性。基于当前研究进展和问题,提出在未来研究中,亟待发展多尺度综合解析各种属性森林对干旱胁迫响应差异的驱动机制研究;各种属性森林生态系统稳态转换临界点的探测;森林对干旱的响应规律在森林管理和模型优化的实践应用。     

黄土高原健康和衰退刺槐林径向生长对气候的响应

全球气候变化导致的区域森林生长衰退和死亡普遍发生,并对森林生态系统结构和组成以及主要生态系统服务功能产生重要影响,然而相关研究在国内还显偏少。根据黄土高原延安羊圈沟小流域人工刺槐林健康和衰退个体分别构建了刺槐健康和衰退树轮年表,并对人工刺槐林健康和衰退年表特征及对气候响应敏感性进行了对比分析。结果表明刺槐衰退年表质量较低,其年表统计参量,包括平均敏感度、样芯间相关系数、信噪比和样本群体代表系数均要低于刺槐健康年表。刺槐衰退年表在生活史早期（1985-2007年）与生长健康年表的波动趋势相类似,而在生活史晚期（2008-2016年）与健康年表指数出现生长分离现象,生长速率明显偏低。年表与气候要素响应分析表明刺槐生长衰退年表对气候要素响应敏感性要低于刺槐生长健康年表,但是两者均含有干旱胁迫气候信号,主要体现在与温度呈负相关关系,与降雨和干旱指数的正相关关系。年表与极端气候年份的时序叠加分析表明,生长健康和衰退年表对极端干旱年份响应敏感性均较高,表明极端干旱胁迫条件对刺槐生长健康和衰退个体均有抑制性影响;生长健康年表对极端湿润年份响应敏感性明显高于衰退年表,表明刺槐健康个体比衰退个体更能有效利用湿润年份有利条件,而具有较高的生长速率。研究揭示出黄土高原健康和衰退刺槐个体生长趋势变化及对气候响应敏感性均存在明显差异性,将为气候变化背景下人工刺槐林生长衰退和死亡预测模型建立提供科学依据,因而对黄土高原人工刺槐林生态恢复和保护及可持续经营具有科学价值。     

大兴安岭北部森林景观对气候变化的响应

将森林景观模型LANDIS和林窗模型LINKAGES相结合,模拟气候变化对大兴安岭森林景观的影响,并比较分析了气候变化对森林景观的直接影响与通过火干扰改变所产生的影响.结果表明:维持当前气候和火干扰情景的条件下,森林景观保持动态平衡,兴安落叶松占据优势树种地位,未来气候情景下,兴安落叶松和偃松的分布面积降低,白桦、山杨、甜杨和钻天柳等阔叶树以及樟子松的分布面积增加,森林景观的破碎化和多样性增加;气候变化对森林景观的影响具有时滞性和长期性,气候变暖有利于大部分树种(兴安落叶松除外)的生长,火干扰增加使山杨、甜杨和钻天柳等分布面积增加,使兴安落叶松、樟子松和偃松的分布面积明显降低;火干扰增加对森林景观的影响几乎与气候变化的直接影响同等重要,其加剧了气候变化对森林组成、森林景观破碎化和森林景观多样性的直接影响.     

黑龙江省未来气候生态与森林的作用研究

本文在扼要概述全球气候变化背景的基础上,根据近百年气候历史资料以及海温、太阳黑子活动、火山爆发、ＣＯ２浓度变化、Ｏ３浓度变化、大气环流指数特征等因子与我省气修变化的定量与定性关系,分析了各因子的综合影响,预测了我省未来十年气候变化趋势。结果表明：我省未来十年气候以温暖、干旱为主,年际间仍存有波动。虽然总的气候变化趋势与全球变化是一致的,但具有明显的区域特征。同时提出了气候变化可能对森林的影响,初步探讨了应采取的森林对策。     

木质藤本及其在热带森林中的生态学功能

木质藤本是热带森林的一个重要组分, 直接或间接地影响着森林中树木的生长和更新, 改变森林树木的种类组成, 并且可以通过改变森林碳固定量等方式在生态系统水平上发挥作用。全球气候的变化, 以及热带森林片断化程度的加剧, 将很大程度上影响着木质藤本的多样性和丰富度, 其特殊的生物学特性将在森林动态中发挥更加重要的作用。本文结合国内外目前木质藤本研究现状, 概述了木质藤本的一般知识(包括木质藤本的定义和生物学特性等), 介绍了木质藤本全球分布格局、其多样性维持机理以及木质藤本在森林生态系统中的功能与作用, 并就存在的一些问题以及需进一步开展的工作展开了讨论。     

木质藤本及其在热带森林中的生态学功能

木质藤本是热带森林的一个重要组分,直接或间接地影响着森林中树木的生长和更新,改变森林树木的种类组成,并且可以通过改变森林碳固定量等方式在生态系统水平上发挥作用。全球气候的变化,以及热带森林片断化程度的加剧,将很大程度上影响着木质藤本的多样性和丰富度,其特殊的生物学特性将在森林动态中发挥更加重要的作用。本文结合国内外目前木质藤本研究现状,概述了木质藤本的一般知识（包括木质藤本的定义和生物学特性等）,介绍了木质藤本全球分布格局、其多样性维持机理以及木质藤本在森林生态系统中的功能与作用,并就存在的一些问题以及需进一步开展的工作展开了讨论。     

植物物候与气候研究进展

植物物候及其变化是多个环境因子综合影响的结果,其中气候是最重要、最活跃的环境因子。主要从气候环境角度分析了植物物候与气候以及气候变化间的相互关系,概述了国内外有关植物物候及物候模拟等方面的研究进展。表明,温度是影响物候变化最重要的因子;同时,水分成为胁迫因子时对物候的影响也十分重要。近50a左右,世界范围内的植物物候呈现出了春季物候提前,秋季物候推迟或略有推迟的特征,从而导致了多数植物生长季节的延长,并成为全球物候变化的趋势。全球气候变暖改变了植物开始和结束生长的日期,其中冬季、春季气温的升高使植物的春季物候提前是植物生长季延长的主要原因。目前对物候学的研究方向主要集中在探讨物候与气候变化之间的关系,而模型模拟是定量研究气候变化与植物物候之间关系的重要方式,国内外已经开发出多种物候模型来分析气候驱动与物候响应之间的因果关系。另外遥感资料的应用也为物候模型研究提供了新的方向。物候机理研究、物候与气候关系以及物候模型研究将是研究的重点。     

中国东北森林生长演替模拟模型及其在全球变化研究中的应用

 NEWCOP模型是一个新的适于模拟东北森林的种类组成动态的林窗类计算机模拟模型,它通过模拟在每一个林分斑块上的每株树木的更新、生长和死亡的全过程来反映森林群落的中长期生长和演替动态。由于 NEWCOP模型是一个由气候变量驱动的生态系统模型,故可用于评价气候变化对东北森林生长和演替的影响。在东北大兴安岭、小兴安岭和长白山地区对NEWCOP模型进行了验证和校准。沿环境梯度对NEWCOP模型的数字模拟实验表明：它能准确地再现顶极森林中树种组成及其在东北地区的垂直分布规律和水平分布规律;能准确地再现大兴安岭、小兴安岭和长白山的主要类型森林的生长和演替规律;在一定的场合NEWCOP还可反映林分的径级结构;NEWCOP模型还具有对现有森林的跟踪模拟能力。应用NEWCOP模型评估了东北森林生态系统对可能气候变化的敏感性。在GFDL 2×CO2和GISS 2×CO2气候变化情景下,东北森林的种类组成将发生很大变化,落叶阔叶树将取代目前长白山、小兴安岭的红松(Pinus koraiensis)和大兴安岭的兴安落叶松(Larix gmelinii)成为东北森林主要树种,而针叶树将在地带性森林中占很小的比重,阔叶树中蒙古栎(Quercus mongolica)将是最重要的树种,它将成为小兴安岭和大兴安岭最主要树种;东北地区适于森林生长的区域将大幅度减少,这些变化主要发生在气候变化过渡期。东北森林对不同的气候变化情景有不同响应。但是,总的趋势是未来东北森林中落叶阔叶树的比重将大幅度增加。这些结论对在全球气候变化背景下,我国东北合理地选择造林树种和制定现有森林的保护经营策略具有一定参考价值。     

气候变化对中国大兴安岭森林演替动态的影响

应用森林生长演替动态模型-FAREAST,在气候变化背景下对大兴安岭漠河林区森林的演替动态进行了模拟。模拟选择了目前气候情景、增暖情景、温度和降水都增加情景3种气候情景,并考虑了气候变化引起的火干扰变化对森林演替的影响。结果表明:维持目前气候不变,兴安落叶松(Larix gmelini)将继续作为绝对优势树种,樟子松(Pinussylvestris var.mongolica)、桦树(Betula)、杨树(Populus)伴生其中;气候发生变化,东北森林带将有北移的趋势,大兴安岭将可能以温带针阔混交林为主,森林群落中出现红松(P.koraiensis)、蒙古栎(Quercus mongolica)、椴树(Tilia)等树种;火干扰影响森林生物量及森林的物种组成和结构。     

植物功能性状对全球气候变化的指示作用研究进展

以大气CO2浓度升高、大气温度升高、干旱胁迫加剧及紫外辐射增强为特征的全球变化对陆地生态系统产生巨大影响,植物作为陆地生态系统的重要组成部分,其功能性状对全球变化的指示作用为探寻全球变化规律、减缓气候变化提供了科学依据。该文主要综述了植物生理功能性状改变(形态变化、气孔调节、光合结构及光合途径改变和植物光合、呼吸速率及水分生理变化等)和物候功能性状改变对全球变化的指示作用,以及植物群落物种丰富度或数量增加等群落特征变化对全球气候变暖的指示作用。最后指出,完善植物功能性状指标和建立从植物个体、群落到生态系统功能的网络指示系统是今后植物功能性状指示研究的发展方向。     

Tropical forests and the changing earth system

Tropical forests are global epicentres of biodiversity and important modulators of the rate of climate change. Recent research on deforestation rates and ecological changes within intact forests, both areas of recent research and debate, are reviewed, and the implications for biodiversity (species loss) and climate change (via the global carbon cycle) addressed. Recent impacts have most likely been: (i) a large source of carbon to the atmosphere, and major loss of species, from deforestation and (ii) a large carbon sink within remaining intact forest, accompanied by accelerating forest dynamism and widespread biodiversity changes. Finally, I look to the future, suggesting that the current carbon sink in intact forests is unlikely to continue, and that the tropical forest biome may even become a large net source of carbon, via one or more of four plausible routes: changing photosynthesis and respiration rates, biodiversity changes in intact forest, widespread forest collapse via drought, and widespread forest collapse via fire. Each of these scenarios risks potentially dangerous positive feedbacks with the climate system that could dramatically accelerate and intensify climate change. Given that continued land-use change alone is already thought to be causing the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history, should such feedbacks occur, the resulting biodiversity and societal consequences would be even more severe.     

季节性雪被变化对森林凋落物分解及土壤氮动态的影响

全球气候变化引发的雪被格局变化将深刻影响植被的凋落物分解、陆地生态系统的土壤养分循环等过程.森林是陆地生态系统的主体,在全球生物地球化学循环中起着不可替代的作用.本研究综述了季节性雪被变化对森林凋落物分解及土壤氮动态的影响.全球气候变化情景下季节性雪被表现出因地域而异的增加或减少的变化格局,一方面通过改变环境温湿度、凋落物质量、分解者动态等直接影响分解过程,另一方面通过改变森林群落结构、植被物候、土壤养分等间接地作用于凋落物分解.同时,季节性雪被通过影响氮富集作用、雪被下土壤温湿度、冻融循环、森林群落、雪下动物和微生物等相关因子而改变森林土壤氮循环.本领域未来应开展的研究是: 1) 全面考虑全球气候变化情景下季节性雪被格局的变异性,开展不同季节性雪被格局变化的模拟研究;2) 开展季节性雪被融雪水淋溶作用对森林凋落物分解和土壤氮动态的影响研究;3) 阐明不同生态系统和气候带中季节性雪被格局变化对森林凋落物分解过程和土壤氮动态的驱动机制研究;4) 量化季节性雪被变化对森林凋落物分解和土壤氮动态在雪被覆盖期的瞬时影响和无雪期的延续影响,为阐明和模型预测陆地生态系统生物地球化学循环对全球气候变化的响应提供理论基础和数据支持.     

Long‐term forest resilience to climate change indicated by mortality,regeneration, and growth in semiarid southern Siberia

Several studies have documented that regional climate warming and the resulting increase in drought stress have triggered increased tree mortality in semiarid forests with unavoidable impacts on regional and global carbon sequestration. Although climate warming is projected to continue into the future, studies examining long‐term resilience of semiarid forests against climate change are limited. In this study, long‐term forest resilience was defined as the capacity of forest recruitment to compensate for losses from mortality. We observed an obvious change in long‐term forest resilience along a local aridity gradient by reconstructing tree growth trend and disturbance history and investigating postdisturbance regeneration in semiarid forests in southern Siberia. In our study, with increased severity of local aridity, forests became vulnerable to drought stress, and regeneration first accelerated and then ceased. Radial growth of trees during 1900–2012 was also relatively stable on the moderately arid site. Furthermore, we found that smaller forest patches always have relatively weaker resilience under the same climatic conditions. Our results imply a relatively higher resilience in arid timberline forest patches than in continuous forests; however, further climate warming and increased drought could possibly cause the disappearance of small forest patches around the arid tree line. This study sheds light on climate change adaptation and provides insight into managing vulnerable semiarid forests.     

A climate change‐induced threat to the ecological resilience of a subtropical monsoon evergreen broad‐leaved forest in Southern China

Recent studies have suggested that tropical forests may not be resilient against climate change in the long term, primarily owing to predicted reductions in rainfall and forest productivity, increased tree mortality, and declining forest biomass carbon sinks. These changes will be caused by drought‐induced water stress and ecosystem disturbances. Several recent studies have reported that climate change has increased tree mortality in temperate and boreal forests, or both mortality and recruitment rates in tropical forests. However, no study has yet examined these changes in the subtropical forests that account for the majority of China's forested land. In this study, we describe how the monsoon evergreen broad‐leaved forest has responded to global warming and drought stress using 32 years of data from forest observation plots. Due to an imbalance in mortality and recruitment, and changes in diameter growth rates between larger and smaller trees and among different functional groups, the average DBH of trees and forest biomass have decreased. Sap flow measurements also showed that larger trees were more stressed than smaller trees by the warming and drying environment. As a result, the monsoon evergreen broad‐leaved forest community is undergoing a transition from a forest dominated by a cohort of fewer and larger individuals to a forest dominated by a cohort of more and smaller individuals, with a different species composition, suggesting that subtropical forests are threatened by their lack of resilience against long‐term climate change.     

Linking population genetics and tree height growth models to predict impacts of climate change on forest production

Changes to forest growth models used widely in global change research and sustainable forest management are needed to account for expected climate change impacts. We provide a new approach that dynamically merges height–age functions prevalent in forest growth models with transfer functions prevalent in population adaptation research to better represent changes to forest productivity as climates gradually change. Our simulations with data from an extensive provenance test of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) in British Columbia, Canada, suggest that climate change will reduce production in lodgepole pine forests established today by at least 7–13% at the end of this century – considerably less than most predictions based solely on transfer or response functions, which do not integrate impacts as climate gradually changes. This work illustrates the need for forest productivity models to consider the changing climate in which a population is growing relative to the static climate of its origin. It also demonstrates the value of long‐term provenance trials in assessing the dynamic impact of climate change on forest productivity, and serves as an example of how provenance trials may be exploited in other forest productivity models or other research fields to assess plant responses to climate.     

Forest Remnants Along Urban-Rural Gradients: Examining Their Potential for Global Change Research

Over the next century, ecosystems throughout the world will be responding to rapid changes in climate and rising levels of carbon dioxide, inorganic N and ozone. Because people depend on biological systems for water, food and other ecosystem services, predicting the range of responses to global change for various ecosystem types in different geographic locations is a high priority. Modeling exercises and manipulative experimentation have been the principle approaches used to place upper and lower bounds on community and ecosystem responses. However, each of these approaches has recognized limitations. Manipulative experiments cannot vary all the relevant factors and are often performed at small spatio-temporal scales. Modeling is limited by data availability and by our knowledge of how current observations translate into future conditions. These weaknesses would improve if we could observe ecosystems that have already responded to global change factors and thus presage shifts in ecosystem structure and function. Here we consider whether urban forest remnants might offer this ability. As urban forests have been exposed to elevated temperature, carbon dioxide, nitrogen deposition and ozone for many decades, they may be ahead of the global change “response curve” for forests in their region. Therefore, not only might forests along urbanization gradients provide us with natural experiments for studying current responses to global change factors, but their legacy of response to past urbanization may also constitute space-for-time substitution experiments for predicting likely regional forest responses to continued environmental change. For this approach to be successful, appropriate criteria must be developed for selecting forest remnants and plots that would optimize our ability to detect incipient forest responses to spatial variation in global change factors along urbanization gradients, while minimizing artifacts associated with remnant size and factors other than those that simulate global change. Studying forests that meet such criteria along urban-to-rural gradients could become an informative part of a mixed strategy of approaches for improving forecasts of forest ecosystem change at the regional scale.     

Tree diversity mitigates defoliation after a drought‐induced tipping point

Understanding the processes that underlie drought‐related tree vitality loss is essential for anticipating future forest dynamics, and for developing management plans aiming at increasing the resilience of forests to climate change. Forest vitality has been continuously monitored in Europe since the acid rain alert in the 1980s, and the intensive monitoring plots of ICP Forests offer the opportunity to investigate the effects of air pollution and climate change on forest condition. By making use of over 100 long‐term monitoring plots, where crown defoliation has been assessed extensively since 1990, we discovered a progressive shift from a negative to a positive effect of species richness on forest health. The observed tipping point in the balance of net interactions, from competition to facilitation, has never been reported from real ecosystems outside experimental conditions; and the strong temporal consistency of our observations with increasing drought stress emphasizes its climate change relevance. Furthermore, we show that higher species diversity has reduced the severity of defoliation in the long term. Our results confirm the greater resilience of diverse forests to future climate change‐induced stress. More generally, they add to an accumulating body of evidence on the large potential of tree species mixtures to face manifold disturbances in a changing world.     

Disturbances in deciduous temperate forest ecosystems of the northern hemisphere: their effects on both recent and future forest development

Disturbances in forests can kill mature trees, but also create the conditions necessary for the establishment of new tree cohorts and create micro-habitats for new plant and animal species, thereby increasing the species diversity compared to undisturbed stands. We review the types and intensities of disturbances on forests in three regions of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere: northeastern North America, Central Europe, and East Asia. We focus on (1) the ways in which disturbances affect forest stand development; (2) the differences among the three areas in this regard; (3) the consequences for future forest management. In both northeastern North America and East Asia, hurricanes and typhoons represent the major mode of natural disturbance, while in Central Europe winter windstorms occur after deciduous trees have lost their leaves. Tornadoes can have even greater destructive power (but affect relatively narrow strips of land), and the more severe of these mainly occur in North America. The general disturbance patch system therefore is relatively large in northeastern North America, small in Central Europe, and of intermediate size in temperate East Asia. In addition to wholly natural disturbance factors, human commerce and globalization have enabled new disturbance types by introducing pests and diseases from one region to another. In North America especially, several of the most important foundation species in temperate forests are strongly affected, so that not just the species composition but also the whole forest structure is changing fundamentally. In all three areas in the past the change in land use by growing human populations strongly affected the structure as well as the species composition of forests. Nearly all the recent forest stands of the temperate zone had been used in the past in a particular way, and many of today’s forests had previously been converted into agricultural land. Finally climate change is superimposing itself on forest development worldwide. Nevertheless, climate change is not a new phenomenon, so forest ecosystems in all time periods have been exposed to changing climatic conditions and have had to adapt. Each forest stand therefore represents a unique recent expression of the interaction of environmental conditions and plant species, a “snapshot” of the relevant abiotic and biotic factors, including human impact.     

Altered dynamics of forest recovery under a changing climate

Forest regeneration following disturbance is a key ecological process, influencing forest structure and function, species assemblages, and ecosystem–climate interactions. Climate change may alter forest recovery dynamics or even prevent recovery, triggering feedbacks to the climate system, altering regional biodiversity, and affecting the ecosystem services provided by forests. Multiple lines of evidence – including global‐scale patterns in forest recovery dynamics; forest responses to experimental manipulation of CO₂, temperature, and precipitation; forest responses to the climate change that has already occurred; ecological theory; and ecosystem and earth system models – all indicate that the dynamics of forest recovery are sensitive to climate. However, synthetic understanding of how atmospheric CO₂ and climate shape trajectories of forest recovery is lacking. Here, we review these separate lines of evidence, which together demonstrate that the dynamics of forest recovery are being impacted by increasing atmospheric CO₂ and changing climate. Rates of forest recovery generally increase with CO₂, temperature, and water availability. Drought reduces growth and live biomass in forests of all ages, having a particularly strong effect on seedling recruitment and survival. Responses of individual trees and whole‐forest ecosystems to CO₂ and climate manipulations often vary by age, implying that forests of different ages will respond differently to climate change. Furthermore, species within a community typically exhibit differential responses to CO₂ and climate, and altered community dynamics can have important consequences for ecosystem function. Age‐ and species‐dependent responses provide a mechanism by which climate change may push some forests past critical thresholds such that they fail to recover to their previous state following disturbance. Altered dynamics of forest recovery will result in positive and negative feedbacks to climate change. Future research on this topic and corresponding improvements to earth system models will be a key to understanding the future of forests and their feedbacks to the climate system.     

Climate change, human land use and future fires in the Amazon

There is increasing consensus that the global climate will continue to warm over the next century. The biodiversity-rich Amazon forest is a region of growing concern because many global climate model (GCM) scenarios of climate change forecast reduced precipitation and, in some cases, coupled vegetation models predict dieback of the forest. To date, fires have generally been spatially co-located with road networks and associated human land use because almost all fires in this region are anthropogenic in origin. Climate change, if severe enough, could alter this situation, potentially changing the fire regime to one of increased fire frequency and severity for vast portions of the Amazon forest. High moisture contents and dense canopies have historically made Amazonian forests extremely resistant to fire spread. Climate will affect the fire situation in the Amazon directly, through changes in temperature and precipitation, and indirectly, through climate-forced changes in vegetation composition and structure. The frequency of drought will be a prime determinant of both how often forest fires occur and how extensive they become. Fire risk management needs to take into account landscape configuration, land cover types and forest disturbance history as well as climate and weather. Maintaining large blocks of unsettled forest is critical for managing landscape level fire in the Amazon. The Amazon has resisted previous climate changes and should adapt to future climates as well if landscapes can be managed to maintain natural fire regimes in the majority of forest remnants.