NEWFORESTS

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 main results of the project are structured in 5 thematic work packages ranging from functional diversity and ecology to forest ecosystem management. Regarding the functional diversity and ecology WP (WP1), researchers from CREAF have worked on carbon fluxes in forests related to disturbances, specifically land abandonment. The findings suggest that new forests have been playing a relevant role in counterbalancing the emission of CO2 in recent decades (Vilà-Cabrera et al 2017 Ecos.). A group of five researchers from CREAF and UQAM showed that although diversity had a general positive impact on forest productivity, it did not offer any protection against the negative effect of climate anomalies where those existed, contrary to the initial hypothesis. More, a study with researchers from CBAE and UQAM showed that biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire (Abbot et al 2016 ERL).

See more results in: http://www.newforests.cat/?page_id=36