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  • A forest captured with a fisheye camera in 360 degree mode.

Future Forests

Forests cover approximately 30 per cent of the global landmass and render numerous essential ecosystem services (ES): They provide renewable resources, mitigate the impact of climate change, support human health, and preserve biodiversity. In the face of rapid climate change, novel ecosystem disturbances, and the introduction or loss of species, large expanses of forests are evolving towards novel ecosystems that are unprecedented in evolutionary history. It is highly uncertain to what extent these novel ecosystems will be capable of rendering the desired ES and preserving biodiversity. The changes will occur so quickly that natural adaptation processes will not be able to keep pace with them.

A ban forest in the Black Forest

Parallel to this development, major societal changes are to be expected, resulting from processes such as urbanization, globalization and trade, land use, and changing demands regarding nature’s services to humans. The natural and social spheres are closely interlinked, interact in a complex way, and thus present unexpected risks. With a better understanding of these system dynamics, it will be possible to devise strategies to prevent undesirable developments. The researchers of Future Forests thus aim to make novel contributions to conceptualizing and analysing forests as new social-ecological systems (SES).

The approaches of Future Forests to analysing and developing transformation pathways for forest-based SES will provide the basis for more adaptive forest systems and more sustainable transformation pathways than in the past. These approaches will be transferable to other world regions and a broad spectrum of ecosystem services.

Participating faculties

Current publications

United Nations Forum on Forests

“Reforestation is not a simple story of win-win”

Interview with Daniela Kleinschmit, Professor of Forest and Environmental Policy and incoming President of the International Union of Forest Research Organisations IUFRO.

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UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai

“The potential of forests to mitigate climate change may be overestimated”

Jürgen Bauhus, Marc Hanewinkel and Friederike Lang discuss forest policy in the face of climate change.

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International Day of Forests

How technological innovation improves understanding of stressed forests

In the ECOSENSE Collaborative Research Center at the University of Freiburg, researchers in microsystems engineering and environmental sciences are jointly developing new sensors to investigate the response of forests to climate change.

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Speakers

A portrait of Jürgen Bauhus.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bauhus

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bauhus heads the Chair of Silviculture at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. His research focuses on controlling the structure and dynamics of forests for the provision of ecosystem services, on the impact of silvicultural measures on the ecosystem, and on the adaptation of forests to global change. He received the ‘Scientific Achievement Award’ from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) for his research. He is chair of the Scientific Advisory Board on Forest Policy at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

chevron-right Chair of Silviculture
Webseite des wiss. Beirats

Prof. Dr. Friederike Lang

Prof. Dr. Friederike Lang heads the Chair of Soil Ecology, located at the Institute of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. Her research foci are the coupling of carbon and nutrient dynamics in forest soils, soil conservation (mechanized forestry), and the ecology of soil structure. Among other projects, she is currently conducting research on the quantification of ecosystem processes across scales by means of smart autonomous sensor networks in the Collaborative Research Centre ECOSENSE (SFB 1537) and serves as spokesperson of the Forest Floor (FOR 5315) research group. She is a member of the Soil Conservation Expert Panel at the German Environmental Agency and theScientific Advisory Board on Forest Policy at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

chevron-right Chair of Soil Ecology
Soil Conservation Expert Panel at the German Environmental Agency
Scientific Advisory Board on Forest Policy at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

Prof. Dr. Marc Hanewinkel

Prof. Dr. Marc Hanewinkel is Professor of Forest Economy and Forest Planning at the Institute of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources. Among other things, he investigates the topics of risk analysis (risk identification, modelling, and assessment), impact of climate change on Europe’s forests, development of adaptive management strategies, economic analysis of climate changes, bioenergy, impact of changes in forest management strategies, and forest restructuring. A project he is currently working on in the ClimXtreme research network is ‘Module C: Impacts – Subproject 11: WIND – Winter Storm Impacts in Central Europe’. He is a member of the European network for forest sciences NFZ.forestnet.

chevron-right Professor of Forest Economy and Forest Planning

Principal Investigators

Most important publications

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Peer-reviewed publications

  1. Schlüter, M., Brelsford, C., Ferraro, P. J., Orach, K., Qiu, M., & Smith, M. D. (2023). Unraveling complex causal processes that affect sustainability requires more integration between empirical and modeling approaches. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2215676120 (This recent contribution demonstrates the need for a collaborative research approach that leverages both empirical evidence and modeling techniques to tackle sustainability challenges.) 
  2. Fuo O, Zengerling C, Sotto D. (2022). A Comparative Legal Analysis of Urban Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in the Building Sector in Brazil, Germany, and South Africa. Climate Law 12(1):32–97. DOI: 10.1163/18786561-12010002 (Recent comparative legal study in the emerging field of climate law.) 
  3. Kaleta T, Kern L, Hong SL, Holzer M, Kochs G, Beer J, Schnepf D, Schwemmle M, Bollen N, Kolb P, Huber M, Ulferts S, Weigang S, Dudas G, Wittig A, Jaki L, Padane A, Lagare A, Salou M, Ozer EA, Nnaemeka N, Odoom JK, Rutayisire R, Benkahla A, Akoua-Koffi C, Ouedraogo AS, Simon-Loriere E, Enouf V, Kroger S, Calvignac-Spencer S, Baele G, Panning M, Fuchs J. (2022). Antibody escape and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 lineage A.27. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28766-y (This study uses state-of-the art methodology to describe virus evolution and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 A.27 lineage.) 
  4. Scherer-Lorenzen M, Gessner MO, Beisner BE, Messier C, Paquette A, Petermann JS, Soininen J, Nock CA. (2022) Pathways for cross-boundary effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.12.009 (This new contribution presents a fundamental concept and outlines pathways of biodiversity effects across ecosystem boundaries on processes. It further proposes an agenda to assess such effects) 
  5. Werner C, Meredith LS, Ladd SN, Ingrisch J, Kübert A, van Haren J, Bahn M, Bailey K, Bamberger I, Beyer M, Blomdahl D, Byron J, Daber E, Deleeuw J, Dippold M, Fudyma J, Gil-Loaiza J, Honeker LK, Hu J, Huang J, Klüpfel T, Krechmer J, Kreuzwieser J, Kühnhammer K, Lehmann MM, Meeran K, Misztal PK, Ng W-R, Pfannerstill E, Pugliese G, Purser G, Roscioli J, Shi L, Tfaily M, Williams J. (2021). Ecosystem fluxes during drought and recovery in an experimental forest. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abj6789 (This study describes the mechanisms and plant functional group responses to severe drought and recovery in a tropical forest.) 
  6. Pauliuk S, Heeren N, Berrill P, Fishman T, Nistad A, Tu Q, Wolfram P, Hertwich EG. (2021). Global scenarios of resource and emission savings from material efficiency in residential buildings and cars. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25300-4 (First estimation of climate, energy, and materials impact of material efficiency and wood use in residential buildings, with global scope.) 
  7. Dulamsuren Ch, Hauck M. (2021). Drought stress mitigation by nitrogen in boreal forests inferred from stable isotopes. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15813 (This was the first study answering the question if co-limitation of forest productivity by nitrogen remains effective if boreal forests switch from temperature limitation to drought limitation.) 
  8. Fünfgeld H and Schmid B (2020): Justice in climate change adaptation planning: conceptual perspectives on emergent praxis. Geographica Helvetica, 75 (4): 437-449. DOI: 10.5194/gh-75-437-2020 (This conceptual paper develops the notion of justice-sensitive adaptation planning, based on empirical work on municipal climate change adaptation processes) 
  9. Haug M. (2020). Framing the Future through the Lens of Hope:Environmental Change, Diverse Hopes and the Challenge of Engagement. Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27124116 (Publication that arose from a plenary event of the German Anthropological Assocations’ conference on the future of the discipline.) 
  10. Krayenhoff ES, Jiang T, Christen A, Martilli A, Oke TR, Bailey BN, Nazarian N, Voogt JA, Giometto MG, Stastny A, Crawford BR. (2020): A multi-layer urban canopy meteorological model with trees (BEP-Tree): Street tree impacts on pedestrian-level climate. Urban Climate. DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2020.100590 (This highly cited paper describes the development of a model that can simulate interactions between trees and surrounding infrastructure to model the local climate mitigation potential of trees.) 
  11. Biedermann PHW,Müller J, Grégoire JC, Gruppe A, Hagge J, Hammerbacher A, Hofstetter RW, Kandasamy D, Kolarik M, Kostovcik M, Krokene P. (2019). Bark beetle population dynamics in the Anthropocene: challenges and solutions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2019.06.002 (Here we described the abiotic and biotic variables that drive bark beetle populations and highlight major gaps in our knowledge that need to be addressed for successful management of these forest insects.) 
  12. Messier C, Bauhus J, Doyon F, Maure F, Sousa-Silva R, Nolet P, Mina M, Aquilué N, Fortin M-J, Puettmann K. (2019). The functional complex network approach to foster forest resilience to global change. Forest Ecosystems. DOI: 10.1186/s40663-019-0199-6 (In this highly cited paper, we propose a novel approach to integrate the functionality of species-traits into a functional complex network approach as a flexible and multi-scale way to manage forests for the Anthropocene.) 
  13. Bachmair S, Tanguy M, Hannaford J, Stahl K. (2018). How well do meteorological indicators represent agricultural and forest drought across Europe? Environmental Research Letters. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaafda (This highly cited paper set a benchmark for the estimation of drought indices to assess drought impacts in forests.) 
  14. Kleinschmit D, Pülzl H, Secco L, Sergent A, Wallin I. (2018). Orchestration in political processes: Involvement of experts, citizens, and participatory professionals in forest policy making. Forest Policy and Economics. DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2017.12.011 (This study clearly showed that governance by citizen participation is rather neglected in European forest policy.) 
  15. Heer K, Behringer D, Piermattei A, Bässler C, Brandl R, Fady B., Jehl H, Liepelt S, Lorch S, Piotti A, Vendramin GG, Weller M, Ziegenhagen B, Büntgen U, Opgenoorth L. (2018). Linking dendroecology and association genetics in natural populations: Stress responses archived in tree rings associate with SNP genotypes in silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). Molecular Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/mec.14538 (Paper demonstrates that analyses of phenotypic information from tree ring data and genetic data are a powerful resource to investigate the genetic basis of stress response in trees.) 
  16. Huang Y, Chen Y, Castro-Izaguirre N, Baruffol M, Brezzi M, Lang A, Li Y, Härdtle W, von Oheimb G, Yang X, Liu X, Pei K, Both S, Yang B, Eichenberg D, Assmann T, Bauhus J, Behrens T, Buscot F, Chen X-Y, Chesters D, Ding B-Y, Durka W, Erfmeier A, Fang J, Fischer M, Guo L-D, Guo D, Gutknecht JLM, He J-S, He C-L, Hector A, Hönig L, Hu R-Y, Klein AM, Kühn P, Lian Y, Li S, Michalski S, Scherer-Lorenzen M, Schmidt K, Scholten T, Schuldt A, Xhi X, Tan M-Z, Tang Z, Trogisch S, Wang Z, Welk E, Wirth C, Wubet T, Xiang W, Yu M, Yu X-D, Zhang J, Zhang S, Zhang N, Zhou H-Z, Zhu C-D, Zhu L, Bruelheide H, Ma K, Niklaus PA, Schmidt B. (2018). Impact of species richness on productivity in a large-scale subtropical forest experiment. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aat6405 (Highly cited and influential experimental field study that demonstrates the potential of tree species-rich afforestation for biodiversity restoration and climate change mitigation.) 
  17. Lang F, Krüger J, Amelung W, Willbold S, Frossard E, Bünemann EK, Bauhus J, Nitschke R, Kandeler E, Marhan S, Schulz S, Bergkemper F, Schloter M, Luster J, Guggisberg F, Kaiser K, Mikutta R, Guggenberger G, Polle A, Pena R, Prietzel J, Rodionov A, Talkner U, Meesenburg H, von Wilpert K, Hölscher A, Dietrich HP, Chmara I. (2017). Soil phosphorus supply controls P nutrition strategies of beech forest ecosystems in Central Europe. Biogeochemistry. DOI: 10.1007/s10533-017-0375-0 (First publication to explicitly describe forest ecosystem adaptation to low P levels in soils based on an interdisciplinary approach covering soil science, microbiology, and plant physiology.) 
  18. Sprenger M, Leistert H, Gimbel K, Weiler M. (2016). Illuminating hydrological processes at the soil‐vegetation‐atmosphere interface with water stable isotopes. Reviews of Geophysics. DOI: 10.1002/2015RG000515 (Highly cited paper that provides an overview of the hydrological processes that alter the soil water stable isotopic composition.) 
  19. Pregernig M.(2014). Framings of science-policy interactions and their discursive and institutional effects: examples from conservation and environmental policy. Biodiversity and Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10531-014-0806-3 (An early and well received paper that applies different theories of science-policy interactions on topics of biodiversity and conservation.) 
  20. Abson DJ, von Wehrden H, Baumgärtner S, Fischer J, Hanspach J, Härdtle W, Heinrichs H, Klein AM, Lang DJ, Martens P, Walmsley D. (2014). Ecosystem services as a boundary object for sustainability. Ecological Economics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.012 (Highly cited paper that highlights the need for greater integration and engagement with the normative foundations of the ecosystem services concept for sustainable development.) 
  21. Braunisch V, Coppes J, Arlettaz R, Suchant R, Schmid H, Bollmann K. (2013). Selecting from correlated climate variables: a major source of uncertainty for predicting species distributions under climate change. Ecography. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2013.00138.x (Highly cited paper that investigated the uncertainty in predicting the future range shifts of species in central Europe under climate change, highlighting the importance of accounting for variable selection when making conservation decisions.) 
  22. Hanewinkel M, Cullmann DA, Schelhaas MJ, Nabuurs G-J, Zimmermann NE. (2013). Climate change may cause severe loss in the economic value of European forest land. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1687 (Highly cited paper that, for the first time, estimated the economic impacts of projected tree species changes under climate change on a European level.) 
  23. Knoke T, Seifert T. (2008). Integrating selected ecological effects of mixed European beech – Norway spruce stands in bioeconomic modelling. Ecological Modelling. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2007.08.011 (One of the first papers integrating economic and ecological perspectives of mixed forests into bioeconomic modelling of mixed forests.) 
  24. Dormann CF, McPherson JM, Araújo MB, Bivand R, Bolliger J, Carl G, Davies RG, Hirzel A, Jetz W, Kissling WD, Kühn I, Ohlemüller R, Peres-Neto PR, Reineking B, Schröder B, Schurr FM, Wilson R. (2007). Methods to account for spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of species distributional data: a review. Ecography. DOI: 10.1111/j.2007.0906-7590.05171.x (Highly cited paper that provides a critical examination of the many available spatial statistical methods that take spatial autocorrelation into account in tests of species distribution data.) 
  25. Klein AM, Vaissière BE, Cane J, Steffan-Dewenter I, Cunningham SA, Kremen C, Tscharntke T. (2007). Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3721 (Highly cited paper that uses novel primary data from 200 countries to evaluate the extent of our reliance on animal pollination for global crop production and highlights the essential role of pollinators for sustaining crop diversity and production.)