Informing sustainable forest management
Research Priorities:
- What is the current and future productivity potential of different species (both coniferous and broadleaf), species mixtures, provenances, and genotypes across a range of soils and climate scenarios?
- How and when do different silvicultural systems and silvicultural interventions influence stand dynamics, growth and yield and how does this vary between tree species, communities, and sites?
- How can dendroecological data be combined with remote sensing and other technologies to develop early warning signals and provide a suite of low-cost, high-resolution forest monitoring tools?
Adapting to climate change
Research Priorities:
- How have different species, populations and communities responded to past extreme events, which are at risk from future shifts in climate suitability and what can be done to manage this risk?
- How, where, and when will native tree community composition shift in response to climate change and what are the implications for ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services?
- How are the different aspects of diversity linked to forest functioning under climate change and how can dendroecological evidence be combined with other data sources to provide tools and practical advice for forest managers and conservation practitioners?
- Which tree species, species mixtures and provenances are best adapted to both the current and anticipated future climates of Scotland?
Restoring biodiversity and ecological systems
Research Priorities:
- How can dendroecologically derived evidence of current and past community composition be combined with other data to inform and target future restoration actions e.g. of Scotland’s Atlantic Rainforest?
- How effective have historic restoration activities been and have these activities resulted in novel forest communities or developmental trajectories?
- How have some tree species responded to disease (e.g., ash dieback), what has the implication been for forest structure and function and which species may be suitable surrogates during restoration activities?
Recommendations
While the approach to any research will be specific to the question being asked or hypothesis being tested, several broad recommendations are likely to contribute to the effective delivery of all three research themes listed above.
As with almost all areas of science, an interdisciplinary approach to dendroecological research will allow a more complete understanding of the ecological processes of interest, and the subsequent development of robust advice for policy makers and practitioners. For example, sustainable forest management requires the balancing of objectives which are socially just, ecologically sound, and economically viable and so naturally lends itself to combining both the social and ecological sciences with economics. Similarly, the integration of emerging technologies and the fusion of dendroecology with diverse datasets will further facilitate exciting new areas of interdisciplinarity, particularly with areas such as remote sensing, machine learning, geophysics, and climatology, amongst many others. A critical step in achieving this is to increase the visibility and awareness of the value of dendroecology in Scotland and beyond, accompanied by a wider understanding of the low risks to tree health associated with the collection of dendrochronological samples. Currently, the dendroecological community in Scotland is still relatively small; however, a growing interest in the value that tree-ring datasets can bring to a wide range of questions presents an opportunity to increase the awareness of the discipline and in doing so build a greater capacity, knowledge, and expertise to deliver exciting, high-quality science on a range of pressing issues.