Forest-landscape dynamics across a climate gradient

Forests and landscapes are fundamentally interconnected, with geomorphic process being modulated by vegetation dynamics, which in turn is influenced by landscape form. Trees play a critical role in shaping landscapes by redistributing sediment across the Earth's surface via gradual processes including tree throw and root growth, and catastrophic processes such as landsliding and debris flows, where spatially variable root cohesion contributes to slope failure likelihood. Conversely, landscape morphology controls the availability of light, water and nutrients for trees and has been observed to dive significant variability in the structure and composition of forests at both local and regional scales. Until recently, our ability to disentangle these processes at broad spatial scales has been limited due to a lack of high resolution data on tree morphology. Advances in Terrestrial Laser Scanning and UAV-LiDAR systems now allow forest plots to be scanned rapidly, capturing the morphology of hundreds of trees alongside the terrain they grow on.

Working across a range of European forest ecosystems, representing a range of climates, we have constructed an unprecedented 3D dataset of European forest-landscape dynamics. From plot-level scans, individual trees are segmented from the digital forest and classified by species. State of the art structural metrics are then computed at an individual, species, and regional level across each distinct climate zone. This pan-European dataset is then coupled with high resolution topographic data, to explore the fundamental linkages between landscapes and vegetation.