Effects of DIVersity of tree TRAITs on FORest stability and resilience. Understanding and forecasting climate change’s effect on the stability of forests

Forest ecosystems play a fundamental role in providing essential ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration. However, climate change is intensifying environmental fluctuations, especially water availability (longer and more severe droughts), which poses a growing threat to forest stability. Understanding the factors that determine this stability, as well as the resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme weather events, is key to anticipating their future response.

Recent studies have shown that the diversity of functional traits associated with drought tolerance—such as resistance to embolism (P50) or water stress (hydraulic safety margin, HSM)—contributes to increased forest productivity stability, especially in Mediterranean forests. This relationship is explained by mechanisms such as the asynchrony of species responses to climate variability. However, it is still unknown to what extent the diversity of other types of functional traits may also be determining factors, or whether these patterns hold true in different bioclimatic regions.

In this study, we aim to analyze how the diversity of different functional traits influences forest stability and resilience across broad geographic and climatic gradients. To do this, we will collect data from national forest inventories in several European countries, as well as information on vegetation productivity obtained from satellites such as Terra, Landsat, and Sentinel.

The objective is to identify which factors—climatic, structural, and functional—best explain forest stability and resilience, and whether the relative importance of these factors varies depending on the climate. This project integrates ecological research with advanced computational tools to deepen our understanding of the relationships between functional diversity and ecological stability, generating key knowledge for forest management and conservation in the face of climate change.