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Last week, two authors of Forest Monitor (Rafał and Marco) visited IUFRO 2017 Conference that was held in Freiburg (Germany). In this post, we would like to share with you our insights about this conference, discuss some presentations and new ideas we have seen there and what was our general impression about the congress.

People who are interested in the ecology of European forests know that the current climatic gradient has a big influence in shaping the distribution and diversity of tree species in the continent.

Austrian “Apfel strudel” and the Italian “Castagnaccio” are only two of the many culinary recipes that are traditional in Europe. But did you know that their main ingredients are the product of trees – Malus domestica and Castanea sativa – that are actually non-native to Europe?

We are back on the million dollar question: how will our forests develop in this uncertain era of climate change? Yes, many study showed that changing climate might have strong impacts on the dynamics of temperate forests, but let’s not forget that management and other factors played (and will play) an important role for European forests.

Trees are beautiful complex adaptive organisms. As we see them standing immobile, deeply rooted to the ground and unable to move, we may think that they are defenceless to any change happening to their surrounding environment.

With the historical drought in California causing the death of something like 102 Million trees in the Sierra Nevada, the topic of tree mortality is hotter than ever. It is usually easy to see if a tree is standing dead or alive.

When speculating on what is going to happen to our forests in an uncertain future, it is hard to generalize. Impacts on tree growth, regeneration and mortality due to climate change and other factors (e.