Extreme climatic events, biotic interactions and species-specific responses drive tree crown defoliation and mortality in Italian forests

doi:10.3832/ifor4531-017

Extreme climatic events, biotic interactions and species-specific responses drive tree crown defoliation and mortality in Italian forests

Filippo Bussotti⁽¹⁾ , Giancarlo Papitto⁽²⁾, Domenico Di Martino⁽²⁾, Cristiana Cocciufa⁽²⁾, Claudia Cindolo⁽²⁾, Enrico Cenni⁽¹⁾, Davide Bettini⁽¹⁾, Giovanni Iacopetti⁽¹⁾, Luisa Ghelardini⁽¹⁾, Salvatore Moricca⁽¹⁾, Tiziana Panzavolta⁽¹⁾, Matteo Bracalini⁽¹⁾, Martina Pollastrini^(1-3)

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 17, Issue 5, Pages 300-308 (2024)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor4531-017
Published: Sep 30, 2024 - Copyright © 2024 SISEF

Research Articles

Collection/Special Issue: Project LIFE MODERn(NEC)
Workshop "Climate change and forest health monitoring in Italy" - Rome (Italy) May 5, 2023
Guest Editors: Bussotti F, Pollastrini M

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The frequency of forest disturbances has increased in recent years, provoking widespread defoliation, crown dieback and tree mortality. The ICP Forests monitoring network offers a unique platform for observing the impacts on forests of heatwaves, droughts and other extreme climatic events, as well as the trends of defoliation and mortality. The Italian ICP Forests Level I network consists of 261 permanent plots where tree crown defoliation and damage symptoms are assessed visually each year by well-trained crews of the Corpo Forestale dello Stato (2001-2016) and the Carabinieri Forestale from 2017 onward. This paper aims to assess the main tree species’ responses, in terms of defoliation and mortality, to severe climatic events. The results are discussed in relation to species-specific physiological behaviour and bioclimatic regions. A significant trend toward increasing defoliation and mortality has been observed since 2010 in both conifers and broadleaves. Conifers (especially Picea abies), which are largely diffuse in the Alpine regions, have suffered from bark beetle outbreaks due to severe windstorms (such as Vaia in 2018) and recurrent dry years. In the temperate regions, characterised by deciduous broadleaved trees, the most relevant defoliation events coincided with the driest and hottest years, with low relative humidity (2012, 2017 and 2021-2022), only partially recovering in the subsequent years. Among them, Fagus sylvatica and Quercus cerris, along with increased defoliation, showed symptoms caused by fungi of the genus Biscogniauxia, causal agents of “charcoal canker”, in less favourable site conditions. Quercus pubescens was the most resilient species, able to restore its crown after defoliation. The Mediterranean forests, with evergreen broadleaved species, showed no significant trends but were impacted at the most drought-prone coastal sites. The findings evidenced that the current ICP Forests network in Italy represents a fundamental infrastructure for monitoring impacts and trends connected to climate change and species-specific responses. A local intensification of the grid would help to capture under-represented species or ecological conditions.

Keywords

Climate Change, Crown Defoliation, Emerging Forest Diseases, Forest Health Monitoring, Heatwaves and Droughts, ICP Forests, Tree Ecophysiology, Tree Mortality

Authors’ address

(1)

0000-0002-8353-4459

0000-0002-1472-4435
0000-0002-3180-4226
0000-0003-3097-559X
0000-0002-8985-3071
0000-0002-0402-8604
0000-0003-0959-9489
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI), University of Firenze, Firenze (Italy)

(2)

Arma dei Carabinieri, Comando per la Tutela della Biodiversità e dei Parchi, Roma (Italy)

(3)

0000-0003-0959-9489
NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Centre, Palermo 90133 (Italy)

Corresponding author

Filippo Bussotti
filippo.bussotti@unifi.it

Citation

Bussotti F, Papitto G, Di Martino D, Cocciufa C, Cindolo C, Cenni E, Bettini D, Iacopetti G, Ghelardini L, Moricca S, Panzavolta T, Bracalini M, Pollastrini M (2024). Extreme climatic events, biotic interactions and species-specific responses drive tree crown defoliation and mortality in Italian forests. iForest 17: 300-308. - doi: 10.3832/ifor4531-017

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: Nov 29, 2023
Accepted: Jul 21, 2024

First online: Sep 30, 2024
Publication Date: Oct 31, 2024
Publication Time: 2.37 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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