Primary Convener:
Kelly Heilman, USDA Forest Service

Convener:
Jennifer Kowalczyk, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Margaret Evans, University of Arizona

Chair:
Kelly Heilman, University of Notre Dame
Jennifer Kowalczyk, Brown University
Margaret Evans, University of Arizona

Climate change, management, land-use changes, and disturbances are altering the structure and distribution of forests through forest demographic processes (growth, recruitment, mortality), affecting forest carbon storage and sequestration capacity. Many observations indicate increased tree mortality rates in response to increasing forest disturbances and drought events, reducing forest carbon stocks. However, there is high uncertainty in the direction and magnitude of tree growth and recruitment trends. Innovations in modeling and synthesis of observational networks are needed to predict demography and consequences for forest carbon across continental to global scales. This session will focus on research that characterizes, forecasts, and quantifies uncertainty around forest demographic processes (growth, recruitment, and mortality), drivers of change, and consequences for forest carbon. We welcome submissions that use ground-based observations, remote sensing, and modeling across scales (tree to global), especially those combining data sources or using novel approaches to characterize drivers of forest demography and forest carbon.

Index Terms
0428 Carbon cycling
0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics
1622 Earth system modeling
1630 Impacts of global change

Co-Sponsored Sessions:
ESA： Ecological Society of America

Neighborhoods:
3. Earth Covering

Cross-Listed:
GC - Global Environmental Change