Research

The increasingly dry and warm summers across Europe have highlighted the growing vulnerability of European forests to climate change. This situation underscores the urgent need to understand how different tree species will adapt to these current and future climate challenges, given the critical ecosystem services forests provide. Forests play a crucial role in the global water and carbon cycles, and wood remains one of the most versatile raw materials available to humanity. These factors make science-based forest management and accurate predictions about tree growth in a changing world more important than ever.

Our primary research focuses on unraveling the complex interactions between forests and the Earth’s climate system, with particular emphasis on carbon allocation into woody biomass, from individual trees to entire forest stands. This work requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates forest ecology, forestry, dendrochronology, forest dynamics, wood science, and ecophysiology. These insights are vital for making informed forest management decisions and implementing conservation actions to enhance the resilience of forest ecosystems to climate change.