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Scenarios for forest biodiversity dynamics under global change in Europe; Identifying micro-evolutionary scale tipping points
Predicting the response of forest trees to ongoing global change is a critical ecological, societal and economic issue. Indeed, forests cover nearly 40% of Europe and around 23% of emerged land worldwide and most “hot spots” of biological diversity (where biodiversity is both high and vulnerable) are actually forests. Besides biodiversity sustainability, forests provide a multiple source of ecosystem services and well-being to human populations, including carbon sequestration and freshwater availability.
Impacts of climate and land-use changes on forests are expected to be acute. Environmental tipping points may be reached where tree populations collapse suddenly with irreversible effects on ecosystem functioning. Adaptive potential could nonetheless be high in tree populations: besides tracking their ecological niche spatially through migration (without adapting), tree populations could adapt to the ongoing climate change in the short-term through individual physiological tolerance (plasticity), and/or in the longer term through evolutionary response to climate-induced selection. However, observed and predicted rates of climate and environmental changes, far above past natural oscillations, raise the issue of how quickly tree species can adapt to Climate Change.