99th ESA Annual Meeting (August 10 -- 15, 2014)

OOS 16

Looking Back and Looking Forward: Results and Advice from the World’s Forest Warming Experiments

Research suggests that multiple aspects of forest structure and function will respond significantly to a changing climate and, because forests play critical roles in Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, such responses have important implications at the global-scale. Large-scale climate experiments are providing exciting insight into forest responses to warming and, although responses may be dependent upon site characteristics, we argue there are currently enough warming experiments with robust results to warrant a synthetic examination of the data. Here we propose a session that focuses on synthesizing our current understanding of forest responses to global warming in temperate and boreal ecosystems. In addition to integrating results into a larger understanding, we have asked speakers to work toward the goal of identifying and applying lessons from these existing warming experiments to the challenges presented by forthcoming attempts to experimentally warm tropical forests. Currently, there is considerable scientific momentum behind the initiation of large-scale climate manipulations in tropical ecosystems and these efforts could greatly benefit from insight and lessons gathered from analogous work at higher-latitudes. Thus, we have assembled talks that offer contemporary results and that will also focus on lessons learned, gaps in understanding, and recommendations for future warming experiments. The talks span a variety of experimental approaches and a diversity of forest types and speakers will consider multiple forest responses, including the temperature sensitivity of heterotrophic respiration and tree growth, tree mortality responses to seemingly subtle temperature changes, and how interactions between climate and nutrient cycles could regulate above- and belowground responses to warming. We hope to use the data and insight provided by this collection of speakers to highlight new research directions that build upon the work presented, as well as underscore novel avenues of investigation. Together these talks provide a comprehensive exploration of how forests are currently responding to temperature increases, they offer data to improve predictions of forest responses to future warming, and they highlight key mechanisms controlling the observed responses. We feel confident this session will provide an improved understanding of how and why increasing temperatures will affect a variety of forests, and that the talks will offer invaluable scientific direction for the next generation of warming experiments. The session will prove rewarding for scientists, decision makers, and land managers alike.