The 26th IUFRO World Congress is the global gathering of forest stakeholders, where latest research, innovations and applied science is presented. It is an opportunity to connect with policymakers and experts from all over the world, all committed to shaping a sustainable future for forests and society.
Session T5.12 Experimental underpinning for projections of forest futures – with Rossella (Maria Rosa) Guerrieri from DISTAL as conveners together with Rob MacKenzie (University of Birmingham) and Virginie Baldy (Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie Marine et Continentale).
The Earth System Models that inform climate policy include treatments of the forest-dominated land carbon sink; as the models run forward in time, their simulations of forest move further and further beyond the model settings over which the simulations have been calibrated and evaluated. While no experiment can mimic exactly the future conditions acting on forests (supposing that the conditions are even precisely known at this point), experiments can provide vital insights that strongly constrain model projections.
Experimental approaches that focus on forest patches (rather than on individual plants) are particularly useful and are the focus of this subplenary session. Patch-scale experiments allow for interactions between individuals, and for food web feedbacks that can radically alter forest dynamics. A new generation of full-scale forest Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) facilities is now producing results, as are a range of droughting, heating, water, and nutrient manipulation facilities. We seek submissions from all such patch-scale manipulations across all forest biomes, particularly those targeted at future forest scenarios. We also seek metanalyses of such manipulation experiments that deepen our understanding of general results across forest types, as well as model-data syntheses demonstrating the value of the newly emerging experimental results for climate projection and Net Zero assessments. We recognise that natural experiments (e.g. space-for-time substitution and use of existing gradients), and modelling-only studies (including intercomparisons), will be adequately covered elsewhere in the conference, and so do not target those for this session. Similarly, long-term monitoring of forest sites is enormously valuable but is not the focus of the current session.
The session will be held on Tuesday, June 25, 04:00 - 06:00 PM (CEST) in the room B3.