Models

I-Maestro will address the following hypotheses using forest simulation models integrating disturbances, management and climate change:

  1. forest management influences recovery processes after disturbances with high impacts on wood production and other ecosystem services
  2. enhancing structural complexity at the stand scale leads to higher resilience of ecosystem services by favouring processes related to growth reactivity (e.g. advance regeneration, response diversity of species)
  3. structural complexity at the landscape scale will mitigate disturbance effects by diversifying resilience pathways and modulating stand susceptibility
  4. the optimal grain size for managing ecosystem services trade-offs depends on disturbance characteristics (e.g. size, frequency) and this should be considered in adopting local management strategies

Semi-Mechanistic (3D light interception calculation. Empirical demographic processes)

Control: Uneven-age silviculture (intra stand level)

Climate effect: Indirect through scenarios of demographic changes

Disturbance agent: Indirect through disturbance scenarios

Level of simulation: Tree spatially explicit

Level of aggregation in I-Maestro: Stand

Sites used for simulations: Level-2 (MOTIVE), PROFOUND & FLUXNET sites, stands in the three landscapes

Semi-Mechanistic (2D light interception, empirical demographic processes)

Control: Sylviculture (differentiated spatially, by tree species and size)

Climate effect: Yes

Disturbance agent: Bark-beetle, drought, storm, fire (not explored in I-Maestro)

Level of simulation: Tree cohorts

Level of aggregation in I-Maestro: Stand & landscape

Sites used for simulations: Level-2 (MOTIVE), PROFOUND & FLUXNET sites, all stands in the three selected landscapes

Dendrometrical

Control: Sylviculture

Climate effect: Yes

Disturbance agent: Indirect through disturbance scenarios

Level of simulation: Stand

Level of aggregation in I-Maestro: Landscape

Sites used for simulations: Level-2 (MOTIVE), PROFOUND & FLUXNET sites, all stands in the Bauges landscapes

Process-based/Ecophysiological

Control: Sylviculture (mostly even-aged, single species stands, can be mixtures of 2 species)

Climate effect: Yes

Disturbance agent: Drought, storm, xylem clogger, phloem feeder, defoliator, root damage, stem rot, mistletoe

Level of simulation: Tree cohorts

Level of aggregation in I-Maestro: Stand to country level

Sites used for simulations: Level-2 (MOTIVE), PROFOUND & FLUXNET sites, stands in the three selected landscapes, National Forest Inventory plots