Recovery and resilience of European temperate forests after large and severe disturbances
Authors: Cerioni Matteo , Brabec Marek , Bače Radek , Bāders Endijs , Bončina Andrej , Brůna Josef , Chećko Ewa , Cordonnier Thomas , de Koning Johannes H. C. , Diaci Jurij , Dobrowolska Dorota , Dountchev Alexander , Engelhart Jeroen , Fidej Gal , Fuhr Marc , Garbarino Matteo , Jansons Āris , Keren Srdjan , Kitenberga Māra , Klopčič Matija , Konôpka Bohdan , Kopecký Martin , Köster Kajar , Kucbel Stanislav , Lacombe Eric , Laurent Lisa , Leyman Anja , Lingua Emanuele , Macek Martin , Maciejewski Zbigniew , Malandra Francesco , Marzano Raffaella , Metslaid Marek , Morresi Donato , Panayotov Momchil , Pawlak Bogdan , Pittner Ján , Šebeň Vladimír , Socha Jarosław , Svoboda Miroslav , Szwagrzyk Jerzy , Tsvetanov Nickolay , Urbinati Carlo , Vallet Patrick , Van de Kerckhove Peter , Vandekerkhove Kris , Vencurik Jaroslav , Vitali Alessandro , Vodde Floortje , Wild Jan , Nagel Thomas A. 
Published: February 2024

Recent observations of tree regeneration failures following large and severe disturbances, particularly under warm and dry conditions, have raised concerns about the resilience of forest ecosystems and their recovery dynamics in the face of climate change. We investigated the recovery of temperate forests in Europe after large and severe disturbance events (i.e., resulting in more than 70% canopy loss in patches larger than 1 ha), with a range of one to five decades since the disturbance occurred. The study included 143 sites of different forest types and management practices that had experienced 28 disturbance events, including windthrow (132 sites), fire (six sites), and bark beetle outbreaks (five sites). We focused on assessing post‐disturbance tree density, structure, and composition as key indicators of forest resilience. We compared post‐disturbance height‐weighted densities with site‐specific pre‐disturbance densities to qualitatively assess the potential for structural and compositional recovery, overall and for dominant tree species, respectively. Additionally, we analyzed the ecological drivers of post‐windthrow tree density, such as forest management, topography, and post‐disturbance aridity, using a series of generalized additive models. The descriptive results show that European temperate forests have been resilient to past large and severe disturbances and concurrent climate conditions, albeit with lower resilience to high‐severity fire compared with other disturbance agents. Across sites and disturbance agents, the potential for structural recovery was greater than that of compositional recovery, with a large proportion of plots becoming dominated by early‐successional species after disturbance. The models showed that increasing elevation and salvage logging negatively affect post‐windthrow regeneration, particularly for late‐successional species, while pioneer species are negatively affected by increasing summer aridity. These findings provide a key baseline for assessing future recovery and resilience following the recent occurrence of widespread disturbance in the region and in anticipation of future conditions characterized by increasing heat and drought stress.