🔥 Massive wildfires in boreal forests have made global headlines, and are expected to further increase. What does this mean for the future of the forests? In a new study, we looked at post-fire forest composition across Eastern Siberia, an underresearched wildfire hotspot. doi.org/10.1111/geb....

🌲We know very well where forest disturbances occur. But how much biomass loss do they cause? Our new paper led by @katjakowalski.bsky.social provides the first Europe-wide assessment of biomass losses from natural disturbances and harvest between 1985 and 2023. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Accelerating biomass loss from forest disturbances across Europe - Nature Geoscience

Satellite observations reveal accelerating aboveground biomass loss across Europe’s forests since 2018, increasingly driven by natural disturbances. These trends weaken the forest carbon sink and chal...

nature.com

A new study led by our @katjakowalski.bsky.social establishes the links between the near-surface temperatures in mountain ecosystems of the Alps 🏔️ and Landsat-derived canopy temperatures 🛰️: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In a new paper, @julianoeser.bsky.social combines tracking data with our disturbance maps to show positive effects of post-disturbance successional patterns on habitat suitability for ungulates. 🌄🦌🍃 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Increasing forest disturbance enhances habitat suitability for Europe’s large herbivores - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Forest disturbances may impact wildlife habitat suitability in complex ways. Here the authors provide evidence that disturbance enhances forest habitat suitability for Europe’s large ungulates over ti...

nature.com

Last week, together with the University of Bayreuth easilabubt.bsky.social, we have started the fieldwork for the new T-EDGE project. We aim to deepen our understanding of the effect of disturbances on microclimate and regeneration in the forest interior.

An international team led by researchers at TUM has calculated how disturbances could transform Europe’s forests by 2100: www.tum.de/en/news-and-...

How fires, storms, and bark beetles will shape the future of Europe’s forests

TUM researchers have modeled how bark beetles, storms and wildfires could affect Europe’s forests. A doubling of forest damage is possible.

tum.de

New paper out! In this collaboration with colleagues from Spain we show that Nature 2000 areas efficiently reduce harvest but not wildfire and drought disturbances. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.70282

Long‐term comparison shows protected and non‐protected forests differ in harvesting, but not in wildfires or drought‐driven dieback

Lower forest harvesting in Natura 2000 sites may align with socio-economic barriers often claimed by local communities, but protection does not influence vulnerability to other disturbances. In a gen....

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

New paper by @albavianasoto.bsky.social and @corneliussenf.bsky.social on forest reburns in southern Europe, published in Glob. Ecol. and Biogeography🌲🔥 Highlight: 30.1% of burned forest area experiencing multiple fire events since 1985. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Prof. Cornelius Senf @corneliussenf.bsky.social has been appointed to the Landsat Science Team! ✨🛰️🌲 The members of the team are among the world's leading Earth Observation researchers and contribute directly to the strategic development of the Landsat program. More: shorturl.at/NMLAy

New paper in collaboration with Thomas Knoke's group and led by Reyhaneh Farahani: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... We incorporate extreme disturbance events into and economic assessment and show that extreme disturbances can lead to significant economic losses.

The impact of extreme disturbance events on the economic attractiveness of stand types: A Monte Carlo simulation-based study

Climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme disturbance events pose major challenges for sustainable forest management. Quantifying the eco…

sciencedirect.com

New paper out! We mapped forest recovery and its drivers in the Alps using multi-decadal fractional cover maps 🛰 and ecologically-informed recovery indicators 🌲.

Cornelius Senf@corneliussenf.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New paper - and final PhD chapter of @lisa-mandl.bsky.social - published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. Using Landsat recovery and meteorological data, we show that thermal limitations constrain post-disturbance recovery success across forests of the European Alps: doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

We’re thrilled to be part of SafeNet, a Europe-wide effort to tackle biodiversity loss and boost forest resilience 🌳🌲 Watch the project video to learn more! SafeNet project website: safenet-project.eu

SafeNet Project@safenet-eu.bsky.social · 12mo ago

🎥✨Our project video is live! #SafeNet is working to safeguard #biodiversity and #carbon-rich #forest networks across Europe🌲🌳 Watch the animated video to learn more! 📽️ youtu.be/pKzUwJ6qShg #Biodiversity #OldGrowth #Forests #CarbonCapture #EUProject @luke.fi @erinninnovation.bsky.social

Our postdoc @albavianasoto.bsky.social took part in a new ForestChats podcast talking about forest disturbance in Europe - where, when and why it happens. Tune in if you want to learn more about our work! 🔊 www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD1n...

ForestChats Episode 2: The European Forest Disturbance Atlas

YouTube video by ForestPaths Project

youtube.com

New paper by Wout Cherlet of @qforestlab.bsky.social with very valuable insights into tree instance segmentation including one of our intensive measurement sites in #Berchtesgaden National Park 🌳✂️🌲 Co-authored by @hanzlan.bsky.social and @corneliussenf.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

A new paper by @lisa-mandl.bsky.social! By linking satellite time series with ground inventories (contributed by >50 coauthors across Europe), Lisa quantified the scale-sensitivity of landscape effects on forest recovery, showing the importance of landscape context. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The amount of undisturbed forest in proximity of severe disturbance patches enhances their recovery in temperate Europe - Landscape Ecology

Context Forest recovery following disturbances is essential for maintaining ecosystem services, especially after large-scale events where regeneration is limited by seed availability. Understanding ho...

link.springer.com

🌲 The European Forest Disturbance Atlas by ForestPaths is now on Forest Information Systems for Europe! Using Landsat data (1985–2023), the maps track fires, storms, bark beetles & harvesting across 38 countries — open-source & updated annually. 🔗 Explore more: forestpaths.eu/news/forestp...

ForestPaths disturbance maps now available on FISE

With ForestPaths releasing the European Forest Disturbance Atlas - a dataset of annual forest disturbance maps across 38 European countries - it is also now featured on the Forest Information System f...

forestpaths.eu

A new study by Mohr et al. (including our very own Prof. Senf) shows that forest disturbance costs in Europe could more than double under future climate scenarios, underlining the importance of adaptation in forestry. More details: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rising cost of disturbances for forestry in Europe under climate change - Nature Climate Change

Climate change will raise the severity and frequency of forest disturbance, damaging the economic value of timber. Researchers show Europe’s timber-based forestry could lose up to €247 billion, yet in...

nature.com

We keep growing! Are you excited about remote sensing and mountain forests? Then consider applying to this PhD position, supported by the TUM Center for Forest Management in the Alps! More details at: portal.mytum.de/jobs/wissens...

Can we map species richness across taxonomic groups from space? Promising results for fungi, plants, insects and birds in a mountain forest landscape, obtained by @corneliussenf.bsky.social et al. by combining different sensors (EnMAP, Sentinel-1/2). doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

We had to change our summer retreat plans due to bad weather but Munichs technical museum was a great alternative. They even have a stuffed spy pigeon on display!

We warmly congratulate @lisa-mandl.bsky.social on her successful PhD defence! In accordance with tradition, Lisa is wearing a special hand-made hat 🎓, illustrating her research and PhD journey, and signifying her transformation into Dr. Mandl😉

Were recent waves of large-scale forest dieback predictable? We say yes! A simple approach to describe temporal disturbance dynamics based on Taylor's Law. Now out in Nature Communications: rdcu.be/euG1A Thanks @tommaso-jucker.bsky.social and @rupertseidl.bsky.social for this great project!

Our new perspective on the use (& misuse) of what we're calling virtual forests (rather than digital twins!), for forest change from space, led by @kimcalders.bsky.social w many great colleagues 🔭 🧪🔬 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Realistic virtual forests for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space

Forests worldwide are undergoing large-scale and unprecedented changes in terms of structure and composition due to land use change and natural distur…

sciencedirect.com

Greetings from the #LPS in Vienna! Tomorrow's the last and the hottest (at least for us) day at the conference: a talk by @albavianasoto.bsky.social and posters by a lot of PhD students! Do not miss the chance to connect ;)

We will be in Vienna for the entire next week, attending the Living Planet Symposium! Below is an overview of our talks and posters:🧵 #LPS25

🎓 Come work with us! We are offering a new PhD position in our lab! You will study the impacts of forest disturbance and fragmentation on microclimate and forest regeneration, together with @katjakowalski.bsky.social. Applicants from diverse backgrounds encouraged! shorturl.at/RT4uk Please RT!

This year, we have only a small - but mighty - presence at the @egu.eu annual conference. Come spark some tree-mendous ideas with our doctoral researcher Brittany Engle @englebritt.bsky.social who will present results of her work on mapping lightning-ignited boreal wildfires! ⚡️🔥🌲

📣In our new paper we analyzed the impact of #Landsat and #Sentinel-2 🛰️ #satellite data density and SMA endmembers on trends in #grasslands ground cover: - for monthly composites data density is irrelevant - correct endmember definitions are critical‼️ Check out the full paper tinyurl.com/wha6pzax

Natural disturbances are often invoked as an argument against creating new forest reserves. But are reserves more affected by disturbances than managed forests? For C Europe the answer is no, in fact reserves have lower disturbance rate & severity than managed forests! doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Strengthening European Forest Monitoring with Earth Observation! 🌍 Led by Prof. Martin Herold, 77 EO experts signed an open letter to the European Commission to consider wider implementation of Earth Observation data for the reevaluation of the Forest Monitoring Law. 🌳🛰️ Read here: shorturl.at/Kst5t