Tree mortality patterns play a central role in forest health, terrestrial carbon dynamics, and biodiversity conservation. While changes in tree mortality patterns to recent climate anomalies have been documented, the effects of climate change on ambient or “background” mortality rates in the absence of severe disturbance agents remains poorly understood. Here, we applied a machine learning approach to a large dataset of 24,576...

Aim To determine the relationships between the functional trait composition of forest communities and environmental gradients across scales and biomes and the role of species relative abundances in these relationships. Location Global. Time period Recent. Major taxa studied Trees. Methods We integrated species abundance records from worldwide forest inventories and associated functional traits (wood density, specific leaf area...

Many modelling approaches have been developed to project climate change impacts on forests. By analysing ‘comparable’ yet distinct variables (e.g. productivity, growth, dominance, biomass, etc.) through different structures, parameterizations and assumptions, models can yield different outcomes to rather similar initial questions. This variability can lead to some confusion for forest managers when developing strategies to ada...

Previous work found that an earlier ice breakup favors the recruitment of juvenile polar cod ( Boreogadus saida ) by enabling early hatchers to survive and reach a large size by late summer thanks to a long growth season. We tested the hypothesis that, in addition to a long growth season, an earlier ice breakup provides superior feeding conditions for young polar cod by enhancing microalgal and zooplankton production over the...

Climate change is altering phenology; however, the magnitude of this change varies among taxa. Compared with phenological mismatch between plants and herbivores, synchronization due to climate has been less explored, despite its potential implications for trophic interactions. The earlier budburst induced by defoliation is a phenological strategy for plants against herbivores. Here, we tested whether warming can counteract def...

Understanding the causal pathways through which forest insect outbreaks are triggered is important for resource managers. However, detailed population dynamics studies are hard to conduct in low‐density, pre‐outbreak populations because the insects are difficult to sample in sufficient numbers. Using laboratory‐raised larvae installed in the field across a 1,000 km east–west gradient in Québec (Canada) over an 11‐yr period, we...

Aim The study aims to decipher the co‐occurrence of understorey plant assemblages and, accordingly, to identify a set of species groups (diversity deconstruction) to better understand the multiple causal processes underlying post‐fire succession and diversity patterns in boreal forest. Location North‐eastern Canadian boreal forest (49°07′–51°44′ N; 70°13′–65°15′ W). Methods Data on understorey plant communities and habitat fac...