Identifying Forest Refugia in Central European mountains under Climate Change

PI: Dr. Cécile C. Remy (2023-2025) & Prof. Dominik Thom (2025-2026); Collaborators: Prof. Rupert Seidl (TUM) & Prof. Wolfgang Buermann (UNA)

PhD student: Sarah Le Berre (2023-2026)

Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/500726124?language=en)

Mountain forest ecosystems provide multiple ecological services but are currently threatened by climate change and increasingly frequent and severe natural disturbances. In this context, future forest refugia may play a fundamental role to sustain long-term population prosperity, avoiding regional species extinctions and thus ensuring the continuation of ecosystem services and preserving unique biodiversity. To conserve these refugia in highly rugged mountainous topography under climate change, it is essential to simulate the evolution of these ecosystems at fine spatial resolution. However, the complexity of the environmental processes that govern their vegetation and disturbances dynamics in such diverse environments makes this exercise a challenge.

Our goal is to use a state-of-the-art forest modelling approach to capture the distinct local environmental conditions in the mountains of Central Europe that are involved in forest refugia occurrence and maintenance. The key objectives will be to:

• Determine the environmental characteristics ensuring the resistance of future forest refugia to climate change and quantify the vulnerability of future forest refugia in the face of projected increasing disturbance regimes (windthrow, insect outbreak), using a spatially explicit forest landscape model in three National Parks in Germany and Austria,

• Apply the results to map the potential future forest refugia and associated risks due to disturbances by the end of the present century in Central European mountains.