Evaluating forest resilience to global threats using functional response traits and network properties.

Area of Science:

• Forest ecology
• Landscape management
• Conservation biology

Background:

• Forest ecosystem functions face threats from global change drivers like climate warming and land-use change.
• Developing resilience-based forest management requires new quantitative tools to assess forest response to disturbances.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and apply a multidimensional approach for evaluating forest ecological resilience.
• To compare the effectiveness of functional enrichment and multi-species plantations in enhancing landscape resilience.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated ecological resilience using species functional response traits and forest patch network properties.
• Applied a multidimensional approach to two management strategies (functional enrichment, multi-species plantations) in a Canadian temperate landscape.
• Simulated drought, pest outbreak, and timber harvesting disturbances to assess resilience under different management scenarios.

Main Results:

• Both management strategies increased landscape-scale resilience by enhancing functional response diversity and connectivity.
• Functional enrichment was more effective than new plantations when targeting less functionally diverse patches.
• Planting species to maximize functional diversity yielded the greatest increase in response diversity, while pest-resistant species maximized connectivity.

Conclusions:

• A multidimensional approach using functional diversity and network properties effectively characterizes landscape resilience to disturbances.
• Management strategies that enhance biodiversity can effectively mitigate drought impacts.
• The proposed simulation approach is applicable to diverse forest biomes for evaluating management initiatives.