The Future of Mountain Forests: Responses to a Drier Climate

Mountains play an essential role in global geo-chemical cycles, are extraordinary rich in biological and socio-cultural diversity and fulfil many ecological and socio-economic functions. Climatic changes, which are especially pronounced in mountain regions, will particularly affect mountain forests due to the long life-span of trees, which does not allow for rapid adaptation. Drought stress may substantially limit mountain forest vitality, socio-economic and especially protective functions and interrelate with further risks, such as forest fires. This project aims at analysing if and how drier conditions influence carbon and water balances of trees and forests, change plant stress responses and interactions with microbial communities, and affect ecosystem services. It is based on eight inter-connected PhD projects focusing on (i) tree carbon relations, (ii) stress response, (iii) phloem physiology of trees, (iv) interactions between microorganisms and plants, (v) forest fire, (vi) forest carbon cycling, (vii) plant volatile organic compounds, and (viii) forest ecosystem services. The PhD projects are embedded in the Innsbruck Doctoral College Alpine Biology and Global Change, one of four colleges in the Research Area Mountain Regions of the University of Innsbruck. The faculty of the project comprises eight established scientists in the fields of plant biology, microbiology, ecology and atmospheric research. PhD students are supervised in teams and profit from the interdisciplinary exchange with other PhD students and close cooperation with re-known international scientific partners, the availability of highly-instrumented field sites and a comprehensive training program. They will also be involved in the International Mountain Conference and the associated international summer school. The project will lead to a better understanding of mountain forests and complex processes under current and future conditions, and create knowledge highly relevant to future forest management strategies. It will establish a strong research focus and scientific team on mountain forest ecology at the University of Innsbruck and enable to further improve infrastructure, methodologies and instrumentation of field sites, to initiate new projects as well as national and international cooperations, and to further improve the structure, organisation and training program of the Innsbruck Doctoral Colleges.