Ongoing Projects

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  • Title: Forest resilience in a changing context: The role of stand attributes, disturbance characteristics and management techniques (AGL2012-40039-C02-01)
  • Funded by: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation (2013-2015)
RESILFOR aims at getting better understanding  in the knowledge of the ecological principles that may sustain new management models oriented to increase the self-adaptive capacity and resilience of forest ecosystems in the view of global change.
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A first part of the project will thus focus on the analysis of how the interaction between the stand attributes and the disturbance characteristics (type, size, speed) modulates the response of the forest vegetation after the occurrence of the pertubation. The second part will focus in the dynamics of a forest ecosystem largely distributed in the Iberian Peninsula that presents a particular vulnerability in the face of disturbances: the monospecific Pinus stands originated either from past reforestation programs or from rapid colonization processes of abandoned areas. Finally the project will evaluate the use of different resprouting species in the understory of conifer forests as a way to increase the response-type diversity of the ecosystem where diversification processes do not occur naturally.
  • ​Related publications
Blázquez A., González-Olabarría J.R., Martín-Alcón S., Just A., Cabré M., Coll L. (2015) Assessing post-storm forest dynamics in the Pyrenees using high-resolution LIDAR data and aerial photographs. Journal of Mountain Science 12(4): 841-853.

Martín-Alcón S., Coll L., Salekin S. (2015) Stand-level drivers of tree-species diversification in Mediterranean pine forests after abandonment of traditional practices. Forest Ecology and Management 353: 107-117.

Martín-Alcón S., Coll L., De Cáceres M., Cabré M., Just A., González-Olabarría J.R. (2015) Combining aerial LiDAR and multi-spectral imagery to assess post-fire regeneration types in a Mediterranean forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Reserach 45(7): 856-866.
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Mediterrean forests are complex  social-ecological systems that provide multiple goods and services. Adaptive management to increase their resilience in the context of global change and related uncertainties is challenging. The project INFORMED provides metadisciplinary research aiming to : (1) produce global change scenarios specifically dedicated to the Mediterranean forests, (2) develop process-based approach of biodiversity and functional response of Mediterranean forests to disturbance, (3) develop integrated assessment of ecosystem services and their dynamics based on ecosystem functions and their economic evaluation and (4) assess adaptive forest management strategies, policy and governance options for their expected impact on resilience.
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El seguimiento de la estructura y dinámica de los bosques a distintas escalas espaciales y temporales es fundamental para evaluar y pronosticar su respuesta a los cambios de clima y de gestión. Este seguimiento es imprescindible para el diseño de estrategias de conservación en los espacios naturales protegidos.

El objetivo del presente proyecto es estudiar la dinámica forestal usando como casos de estudio los movimientos altitudinales de ecotonos forestales y cambios en la dominancia de especies arbóreas como consecuencia de procesos de decaimiento. Para ello se usarán modelos espacio-temporales que integren diferentes escalas espaciales, incorporando datos de estructura local obtenidos a partir de imágenes estereoscópicas hemisféricas, datos de la dinámica forestal a escala regional derivada de imágenes aéreas y de satélite combinadas con datos LiDAR y series dendrocronológicas. El proyecto se desarrollará en los Parques Nacionales de montaña (Ordesa y Monte Perdido, Sierra Nevada, Aiguestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, Picos de Europa y Sierra de Guadarrama) abarcando así un amplio gradiente climático, biogeográfico y de historia de usos.
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​The NEWFORESTS exchange program brings together researchers from 5 research institutions: two from public research centres in Spain, Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) and Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), one French institution, Bio-Archaeology and Ecology Centre (CBAE), and two Canadian Universities (University of Quebec in Montreal, UQAM, and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, UQAT) hosting two of the main hubs of the Centre for Forest Research (CEF). During three years, a total of 36 senior researchers will participate in the program with a total of 328 man-months including experienced and early stage researcher, technical and management staff from the different centres.

The aim of this project is to create a competitive platform at the international level to analyse the responses of forest ecosystems to global changes and integrate current knowledge in sound and innovative forest management and planning approaches. The general objective of the program is to determine how to effectively integrate woodland Management (including non-management options) into strategies aimed to adjust and mitigate global change. The program is organized in 5 thematic work packages ranging from the basic understanding of forests dynamics, biodiversity and functioning (WP 1 and 2) to research on interactions between global change drivers determining disturbances regimes (WP 3) and the integration of the gathered knowledge into advanced modelling tools (WP 4) and sound management guidelines at different spatial scales (WP 5). Finally, a project management (WP 6) depicts the practical organisation and management of the project.

A fundamental aspect of the program is that it stresses not only the responsibility of human society as a major driver of global change, but also recognizes that we have an opportunity to mitigate this change through informed, proper management.