Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Forests support about 65% of the world's terrestrial taxa. Conserving functional and diverse forests is crucial. Most governmental programs have so far focused on creating protected areas to achieve this objective, but with more than 92% of the world's forests outside such areas, this will not suffice. Pristine forests around the globe are steadily declining, with virtually none left in most of Europe and many parts of the globe. The aim of this research program is to improve our understanding of complex natural forest systems which are being adverselely affected by forest management, pollution and climate change. The theoretical and practical understanding gained from this research will enable us to better meet the increasing challenges of managing forest ecosytems for resiliency. The four objectives of this research program are: (1) to investigate the functional relationships among different tree species in natural forests and mixed plantations; (2) to characterize and compare forest complexity between managed and unmanaged forests within and among boreal, temperate and tropical biomes; (3) to investigate mechanisms of tree species coexistence in natural and managed forests; and (4) to develop a new silviculture for managing complexity. For each objective, various hypotheses will be tested using both experimental and modeling approaches. This proposed research program will investigate novel theoretical and practical questions and methodologies regarding (a) facilitation, complementarity and inhibition among tree species growing in complex forest communities; (b) mechanisms of coexistence of various tree species at various spatial and temporal scales, and under homogeneous vs heterogeneous environmental conditions; (c) how functional, structural and compositional complexity varies at different spatial and temporal scales under various forest management approaches both within and among various biomes; and (d) the development of new silvicultural approaches that incorporate the notions of complex system theory for managing forest stands to maintain as much complexity as possible.