Forest microclimates and climate change: Importance, drivers and future research agenda

作者：Pieter De Frenne, Jonathan Lenoir, Miska Luoto, Brett R. Scheffers, Florian Zellweger, Juha Aalto, Michael B. Ashcroft, Ditte Marie Christiansen, Guillaume Decocq, Karen De Pauw · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.15569 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Forest microclimates contrast strongly with the climate outside forests. To fully understand and better predict how forests' biodiversity and functions relate to climate and climate change, microclimates need to be integrated into ecological research. Despite the potentially broad impact of microclimates on the response of forest ecosystems to global change, our understanding of how microclimates within and below tree canopies modulate biotic responses to global change at the species, community and ecosystem level is still limited. Here, we review how spatial and temporal variation in forest microclimates result from an interplay of forest features, local water balance, topography and landscape composition. We first stress and exemplify the importance of considering forest microclimates to understand variation in biodiversity and ecosystem functions across forest landscapes. Next, we explain how macroclimate warming (of the free atmosphere) can affect microclimates, and vice versa, via interactions with land-use changes across different biomes. Finally, we perform a priority ranking of future research avenues at the interface of microclimate ecology and global change biology, with a specific focus on three key themes: (1) disentangling the abiotic and biotic drivers and feedbacks of forest microclimates; (2) global and regional mapping and predictions of forest microclimates; and (3) the impacts of microclimate on forest biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the face of c...