Projected changes in temperature and drought regime are likely to reduce carbon (C) storage in forests, thereby amplifying rates of climate change. While such reductions are often presumed to be greatest in semi‐arid forests that experience widespread tree mortality, the consequences of drought may also be important in temperate mesic forests of Eastern North America ( ENA ) if tree growth is significantly curtailed by drought...

Climate and competition are often presented from two opposing views of the dominant driver of individual tree growth and species distribution in temperate forests, such as those in the eastern United States. Previous studies have provided abundant evidence indicating that both factors influence tree growth, and we argue that these effects are not independent of one another and rather that interactions between climate, competit...

Experimental study of the effects of projected climate change on plant phenology allows us to isolate effects of warming on life‐history events such as leaf out. We simulated a 2 °C temperature increase and 20% precipitation increase in a recently harvested temperate deciduous forest community in central Pennsylvania, USA , and observed the leaf out phenology of all species in 2009 and 2010. Over 130 plant species were monitor...

Aim Woody plant expansion and infilling in grasslands and savannas are occurring across a broad range of ecosystems around the globe and are commonly attributed to fire suppression, livestock grazing, nutrient enrichment and/or climate variability. In the western Great Plains, ponderosa pine ( Pinus ponderosa ) woodlands are expanding across broad geographical and environmental gradients. The objective of this study was to rec...