Beca Inphinit Faqrul Islam Chowdhury

Forests provide essential ecosystem services and support biodiversity, but they are seriously threatened by the increasing occurrence and impact of climate change disturbance events (e.g., droughts, windstorms, wildfires, and pest outbreaks). Even though there is growing information on the impact of climate change disturbances on forests, there is less information available, regarding:
• mid or long-term impacts of disturbances and the effects of their climatic suitability on the populations affected,
• the trade-off between different effects on protecting biodiversity (such as tree deaths versus more deadwood) and
• the effects of land-use history and forest management.

Methods
In the first stage, surveys in previously monitored forest plots will carried out. These plots established across Catalonia in 2013 in sites that had experienced drought-induced die-off and mortality events in the 2005 and 2012 episodes. The design consists of paired stands in affected and unaffected forests. This resilience assessment will focused on structural, demographic, and biodiversity-related variables at the stand level.
A second stage will include resampling forest plots established by NFIs (National Forest Inventories) of Spain, which have experienced climate change-driven disturbances (drought, pest outbreaks), as recorded in the DEBOSCAT monitoring program since 2012. In this case, resilience will be measured by comparing plots that have been disturbed and plots that haven't been disturbed at the regional level.