Climate change is reshaping European ecosystems through increasing drought, heat stress and disturbances frequency and intensity as well as increased plant mortality, thereby altering the structure and composition of these ecosystems. Plants regeneration therefore appears as a key process for the persistence and redistribution of plant populations under these changing conditions. Regeneration is not a single demographic rate, but rather a trajectory consisting of a sequence of stages and transitions, from flowering and seed production through dispersal, germination, establishment, and recruitment. This breadth, together with the scarcity of long-term and large-scale monitoring, result in regeneration being poorly understood compared to other processes, despite its central role in determining the future dynamics of populations and communities.
Because successful recruitment depends on plant survival throughout the regeneration trajectory, climate-driven changes occurring at any stage of this trajectory can constrain the success of subsequent stages and ultimately determine regeneration success. Conversely, other stages may potentially buffer the negative effects of climate change. The future and importance of each regeneration stage in the upcoming years therefore depend on its sensitivity to environmental drivers. Although important drivers are likely to be stage- and species-specific and to be variable among regions and environmental conditions, this variation could also reveal broader and potentially generalisable patterns.
Many questions remain as to which stages of regeneration are most sensitive to ongoing climate change, where and under which conditions regeneration is most at risk, and which species, populations, traits, or environmental contexts support resilience. This session aims to bring together research on managed and unmanaged ecosystems (excluding purely agricultural settings) across the regeneration trajectory. We welcome contributions using long-term observational data, experiments, spatial gradients, demographic analyses, and modelling to investigate how biotic and environmental drivers shape European’s tree and long-lived plant regeneration. By gathering observations from numerous species, regeneration stages and locations evidence, this session seeks to advance understanding of where and why regeneration is succeeding or failing, and what these changes imply for the composition and resilience of European ecosystems.