Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Tom Ovenden

HoliSoils Project @holisoils.bsky.social · Aug 18

Mixed #forests outperform spruce plantations in carbon fight!🌲

A 24-year field study, led by M. Bosela and peers at Technical University Zvolen, part of #HoliSoils, finds that Norway spruce plantations are more vulnerable than neighbouring mixed forests.

Full story ➡️ holisoils.eu/mixed-forest...

Mixed forests outperform spruce plantations in carbon fight - HoliSoils

A 24-year field experiment in Slovakia finds that Norway spruce plantations are more vulnerable to drought, pest outbreaks and soil carbon losses than

holisoils.eu

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Dr. Joan Dudney @dudney-joan.bsky.social · Aug 14

Really excited to share our new paper on #causalinference & #climatechange attribution out in #EcologyLetters today!

Are you asking "how much" or "if" climate change has impacted your system, then this paper is for you!

🧪🌏🌐🍁🌺🌱🌿
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A Causal Inference Framework for Climate Change Attribution in Ecology

Accurately attributing ecological shifts to climate change remains a significant challenge. Here, we present an accessible causal inference framework designed for climate change attribution in observ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · Aug 6

Terrestrial laser scanning can transform national forest inventories by adding new measurements and a 3D perspective. In our new paper we provide a pathway for implementing 3D forest surveys. 1/6 🧪🌎🌳🌲 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Fig. 1 from Holvoet et al. (2025). TLS and MLS scan setup, point cloud segmentation, and pre-processing.

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Jul 30

So excited to announce this newly funded project 🎉 🌲

We want to understand relationships between forest structural diversity (not just species diversity!), #drought #resilience and timber quality using cutting edge remote sensing #LiDAR) and tree cores to look back in time at tree growth!

Centre for Forest Protection @forest-protection.bsky.social · Jul 30

📢 PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT 📢

🌳 Can more diverse, complex forests better withstand drought?

🔬 Our scientists are using remote sensing, tree rings & silviculture to explore how structural diversity boosts resilience in UK woodlands.

🔗 Read more: www.forestprotection.uk/project/cfp2...

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Jul 25

Absolutely delighted to have secured funding through the Centre for Forest Protection and be collaborating with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew @rbgkew.bsky.social on this exciting research!

Centre for Forest Protection @forest-protection.bsky.social · Jul 23

📢 PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT 📢

🌳 Are we planting the right trees for tomorrow’s climate?

🔬 Using genomics & tree rings, our scientists aim to predict which genotypes will thrive, and where, to build resilient forests in the UK.

🔗 Read more: www.forestprotection.uk/project/cfp2...

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Jakub Nowosad @jakubnowosad.com · Jul 16

🌲 New R package: forestdata makes it easy to download forestry and land cover data from multiple sources (Copernicus, ESRI, EU-Trees4F, and more). Supports sf, SpatRaster, and tidy outputs.

Explore it here: cidree.github.io/forestdata/

#rstats #rspatial #forestry #landcover

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Matt Jones @mattwjones.bsky.social · Jul 11

🌳 🔥 🌎 Our new paper: The extreme fire-prone #weather underpinning some of the worst #wildfire episodes this century has become more than twice as likely due to #climate change—a trend now evident across much of the world's tropical and mid-latitude #forests.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Climate change has increased the odds of extreme regional forest fire years globally - Nature Communications

The authors show that extreme fire years in global forests align with rare fire weather extremes. Climate change has made such extremes 88-152% more probable. These findings highlight the need for act...

www.nature.com

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Nature Plants @natplants.nature.com · Jul 8

New Article: "Global evidence for a positive relationship between tree species richness and ecosystem photosynthesis" rdcu.be/evevg

Forests with higher tree species richness show greater photosynthesis: essential role of biodiversity in enhancing carbon uptake.

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Julia Koricheva @juliakoricheva.bsky.social · Jun 27

📢 Fully funded PhD studentship for UK students is available in my lab @rhulbiology.bsky.social as part of new EU project Trees4Adapt
🌲🌳 Fieldwork in forest diversity experiments in Finland www.sataforestdiversity.org
📆 Apply by Sept 8th, start date - Jan 2026
👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🍁🌍🧪

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Jun 16

Would love to read this, any chance you could DM me a pdf copy please?

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Margaret Evans @mekevans.bsky.social · Jun 12

New in @sciencemagazine, a review on Scaling plant responses to heat (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). Increased temperature along with acute heat waves threaten the ability of terrestrial vegetation to act as a carbon sink, but predicting how plants will respond to heat is challenging.

Scaling plant responses to heat: From molecules to the biosphere

Predicting plant responses to rising temperatures, including acute heat waves and hot droughts of varying intensity and duration, is central to addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. However,...

www.science.org

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UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) @ukceh.bsky.social · Jun 13

🌊 Exciting research could help the UK better prepare for droughts... 

It shows a link between North Atlantic ocean temperatures and UK summer droughts, with signs up to 18 months ahead ☀️

@amulyachevuturi.bsky.social explains more: www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med...

@canari-science.bsky.social 🧪

Infographic with maps showing how North Atlantic Ocean temperatures are linked to UK droughts many months later.

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EXCELLENTIA_HE @excellentia.bsky.social · Jun 10

🚨The new 🧪publication by Marian Schönauer, @borisrewald.bsky.social et al. demonstrates that #ERA5-Land data is equally well suited to modelling 🍁 #tree growth as weather station data. ERA5-Land opens up possibilities for modelling and overcomes issues of data accessibility. doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

The main map shows colour-coded stands of four tree species included in the tree-ring width dataset (TRWall), details of Austria and Germany (TRWAWS) with automatic weather stations (AWS, black dots; top right), and an example overlay of ERA5-Land grid cells (blue lines), locations of AWS and sites (bottom right). The ACE2 (Altimeter Corrected Elevations, v.2) digital elevation model is used as the background.

Citation: Schönauer MJ, Pucher C, Altman J, Weißbacher J, Sprengel L, Rewald B (2025) Beyond meterological data: Modelling Tree Growth with ERA5-Land. Agr Forest Meteorol 372:110679. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110679

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · May 23

Great opportunity to do some awesome science at @rbgkew.bsky.social and @forestresearchuk.bsky.social on our new project combining dendrochronology & genetics to find climate resilient genotypes in oak! 🍁 🌳🧬

🥼Job: PostDoc
💷 Salary: £43,751
🗓️ Closing date: 05/06/25

careers.kew.org/internal/vac...

Post doctoral Research Associate in Genomics and Climate Change - Careers | Kew GardensMenuClose menu

careers.kew.org

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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · May 21

Drought is a growing issue in tropical rainforests. A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution revisits a long-term rainfall manipulation experiment in the Amazon to show that tree mortality was followed by community-level adjustments to reduced precipitation. go.nature.com/4kbQbfu 🧪

This is figure 3, which provides a synthetic diagram showing a summary of the results, including individual physiology (hydraulics and growth) and forest carbon dynamics.

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · May 21

🎉🌲🌳🍁🛰️ NEW PROJECT!
Delighted to announce that our NEW 3yr project “Enhancing forest resilience through stand structural complexity” has been funded through @forest-protection.bsky.social to look at relationships between forest structure & drought resilience!
www.forestprotection.uk/2025/05/06/a...

Defra Announces New Funding for the Centre for Forest Protection - Centre for Forest Protection

The Centre for Forest Protection has been awarded £4m to support 17 more projects in 2025-26.

www.forestprotection.uk

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Julia Koricheva @juliakoricheva.bsky.social · Apr 27

Single- vs mixed-species plantations: A systematic review on the effects on biodiversity 🌳🌲https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320725002198

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Apr 14

Only 1 day left to apply to come and work with us at Forest Research!!🔬 🌲🌳📊👇🍁

🌲🔬Role: Data analyst
📆 Closing date: 15th April
💷 Salary: £32,089 + a 28.97% pension
⏳Duration: Fixed term May 2025 - March 2026 with the possibility of extension

Apply HERE:
www.forestresearch.gov.uk/about-us/car...

Careers - Forest Research

Explore jobs with Forest Research, the UK’s leading scientific organisation for forestry and tree-related research and science.

www.forestresearch.gov.uk

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Ade Martin @ademartindc.bsky.social · Apr 6

Good morning people. Today in “One day, one paper”, one of the most popular strategies used to remove carbon dioxide from the air is planting trees. However, not all tree-planting strategies are equally beneficial 🌎🍁

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Resilient tree-planting strategies for carbon dioxide removal under compounding climate and economic uncertainties | PNAS

To meet decarbonization targets, nations around the globe have made ambitious commitments to expand forested land. Operationalizing these commitmen...

www.pnas.org

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Kirsten Krüger @kirstenkrueger.bsky.social · Mar 26

Setting forests aside doesn’t stir up more trouble—in fact, it calms the chaos 🌳
Happy to see my first PhD chapter out! 📝
Setting aside forests for biodiversity conservation does NOT amplify disturbances in temperate forests of Central Europe.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Setting aside areas for conservation does not increase disturbances in temperate forests

We found no evidence that setting aside forests for biodiversity conservation amplifies disturbances in temperate forests of Central Europe. Conversely, we found that strict forest reserves had lower...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Danni Thompson @scottishseabird.bsky.social · Apr 3

1/7 Variation between individuals is important as it determines how adaptable to change a population might be. Even generalist spp are often comprised of specialist individuals, but specialisation is often only studied across single traits which is limiting.
#BOU2025 #ornithology #seabirds #ecology

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Mar 27

Job Alert!
Interested in cutting edge forest science, fieldwork and data analysis? 🍁

x2 Roles: Data analyst/modeller
Closing date for application: 15th April
Salary: £32,089
Duration: Fixed term, May 2025 - March 2026 possibility of extension

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...

Quick Check NeededGOV.UK

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk

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Tom Ovenden @woodecology.bsky.social · Mar 6

Making this film was a lot of fun!

Many thanks to all the wonderful Scientists that hosted me in Argentina and Chile during this Short Scientific Visit in 2023, and to IUFRO @iufro.bsky.social for funding it! 🍁 #SciComm #Forest #Ecology #Resilience #ClimateChange #Climate #PlantScience

Forest Research @forestresearchuk.bsky.social · Mar 6

🌍 How are forests in Chile & Patagonia adapting to #ClimateChange?

@woodecology.bsky.social spent 6 wks collaborating with scientists from Chile & Argentina investigating the impact of extreme drought. 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐠𝐞 is Tom's film on the science behind their future.

ow.ly/fkHq50VbPMZ

Forests at the edge

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

ow.ly

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Forest Research @forestresearchuk.bsky.social · Mar 4

🌲 How can we make forests more resilient to #ClimateChange?

To find out, Forest Research compared the early survival & growth rates of familiar tree species to lesser-known species from multiple provenances across a range of site conditions.

Dr. Tom Ovenden MICFor breaks down the key findings ⤵

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Tom Fairman @itsnotfairman.bsky.social · Mar 4

Excellent first PhD paper from @aaronheap.bsky.social using Wilson's Prom as a case study to examine the long term impacts of high severity short interval fire - Diverse forest types all converge on a homogenised structural form and this persists for decades.
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Short-interval fires homogenise the structure of diverse temperate forests

Changing fire regimes can drive significant transformations in forest landscapes, including shifts to alternative stable states. However, these states…

www.sciencedirect.com

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