Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Climate-induced tree mortality has emerged as a global concern that is expected to increase under the projections of future climate change. Canadian boreal forests, which occupy 77% of Canada's total forest land, play a critical role in the Earth's surface albedo and the global carbon budget. Recent studies suggested that Canadian boreal forests may be highly vulnerable to rapid increases in tree mortality due to warmer temperatures and more severe droughts and defoliation by spruce budworm. Forecasting the potential impacts of increasing tree mortality on carbon budgets requires both local and regional scale. These impacts, however, have generally been ignored in large-scale carbon cycle modeling studies because data on tree mortality over large areas are expensive to collect, and therefore not widely available. There is an urgent need to develop a better scientific understanding and to quantify and forecasting the impacts of future climate change and associated insect disturbances on boreal forest ecosystems in Canada, including ecosystem productivity, tree mortality and changes in the timing and magnitude of fluxes between the land and the atmosphere. To my knowledge, no comparable studies on changes in tree mortality rates have been conducted in boreal forests using a model-data fusion (MDF) approach which integrates observed forest plots and remote sensing data with climate data and a process-based forest model in Canada. The central objective of this 5 year research program is to develop and use state-of-the-art of TRIPLEX-mortality to 1) better understand and predict forest growth, mortality and biomass carbon; and 2) quantify and reduce risks and uncertainties by using new model-data fusion approach on the loss of forest growing stock and biomass carbon due to tree mortality in the face of climate change. Our approach will provide a powerful and tractable way of incorporating tree mortality into forest models to reduce uncertainty over the fate of Canadian boreal forest ecosystems in a changing climate. The present research program will focus on the boreal forests of eastern Canada. This work will fill in our knowledge gaps in the area of the direct effects of climate change on tree mortality, biomass, and carbon balance of Canada's boreal forests. This study will pave the way for better quantifying and forecasting drought and insect impacts and better understanding of how climate change will alter Earth's forests in the 21st century. The knowledge gained from this research will be transferred to forest managers, industry partners and policy makers. This Discovery program will contribute to the training of 15 highly qualified personnel (10 undergraduates, 2 MSc, 2 PhDs and 1 post-doctorate) in the areas of forest growth, mortality, remote sensing, climate change and biomass/carbon relationships.