The terrestrial vegetation carbon balance is controlled not just by photosynthesis, but by respiration, carbon allocation, turnover (comprising litterfall, background mortality and disturbances) and wider vegetation dynamics. Observed, and likely future, changes in vegetation structure and functioning are the result of interactions of these processes with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, climate and human activities. The quantification and assessment of such changes has proven extremely challenging because of a lack of observations at large scales and over the long time periods required to evaluate trends.

Thus, our current understanding of the environmental controls on vegetation dynamics and properties, and, in turn, their impact on carbon stocks in biomass and soils, is limited. The behaviour of vegetation models regarding many of the processes mentioned above remains under-constrained at scales from landscape to global. This gives rise to high uncertainty as to whether the terrestrial vegetation will continue to act as a carbon sink under future environmental changes, or whether increases in autotrophic respiration or carbon turnover might counteract this negative feedback to climate change. For instance, accelerated background tree mortality or more frequent and more severe disturbance events (e.g. drought, fire, insect outbreaks) might turn vegetation into carbon sources. Likewise, understanding how these shifts in dynamics will influence forest composition is crucial for long-term carbon cycle projections.

Uncertainties and/or data gaps in large-scale empirical products of vegetation dynamics, carbon fluxes and stocks may be overcome by extensive collections of field data and new satellite retrievals of forest biomass and other vegetation properties. Such novel datasets may be used to evaluate, develop and parametrize global vegetation models and hence to constrain present and future simulations of vegetation dynamics. Where no observations exist, exploratory modelling can investigate realistic responses and identify necessary measurements. We welcome contributions that make use of observational approaches, vegetation models, or model-data integration techniques to advance understanding of the effects of environmental change on vegetation dynamics, tree mortality and carbon stocks and fluxes at local, regional or global scales and/or at long time scales.