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Environmental Pollution xxx (2013) 1e2
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Environmental Pollution
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envpol
Editorial
Biological reactions of forests to climate change and air pollution
The international conference “Biological Reactions of Forests to
Climate Change and Air Pollution” was held on 18e26 May 2012 at
Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Kaunas, Lithuania, and gathered more than 200 scientists from 34 countries to share current
state of knowledge and discuss scientific gaps in the understanding of the interaction of climate change and air pollution, and their
integrated and synergic effects on forest ecosystems. Previous conferences of this series were held in Turkey (Serengil et al., 2011)
and Switzerland (Paoletti et al., 2010). The conference was organized by IUFRO Research Group 7.01.00 “Impacts of air pollution
and climate change on forest ecosystems”, COST Action FP0903
“Climate Change and Forest Mitigation and Adaptation in a
Polluted Environment”, ENVeurope Project “Environmental quality and pressures assessment across Europe: the LTER network as
an integrated and shared system for ecosystem monitoring”, ICP
Integrated Monitoring Task Force Meeting, North American Air
Pollution Workshop, European Long-Term Ecosystem Research
Network LTER-Europe.
The combination of diverse programmes provided a holistic
view of the forest environment and greatly facilitated the important knowledge exchange needed to enhance sustainable management of forests today and in the future, as it was mentioned in the
greeting speech of the President of Lithuanian Republic Mr. Valdas
Adamkus e the culture of environmental protection and our relationship with nature is a vital part of the general human culture.
Any talk about the achievements of civilization without humanitarian dimension, sense of responsibility and serious environmental
analysis will never be anything more than just a mere talk. Meanwhile, only a careful and responsible approach to the surrounding
environment, the ability to capture the full range of human economic activity, and common responsible policies will lead us to
genuine process.
In addition, organizing the conference in an academic environment with the support of USDA Forest Service International Programs allowed for an active participation of the students and
young scientists to acquire professional knowledge and learn lessons of the responsible living and working with respect to sustainable relationship with nature. This is especially important today
when the global changes and forest sustainability are increasingly
becoming of greater and greater concern, and when it is important
to see what further measures are needed to understand and estimate the effect of the changing environment on ecosystems.
There are large uncertainties concerning the response of forest ecosystems to reduced pollutant emission load. At what level
of acid deposition can we expect recovery of the ecosystems,
and especially of their biological components (diversity and
abundance)? What is the effect of different forms of nitrogen
deposition (NHx and NOy)? What tendencies in the air pollution
of acidifying species and ozone can we expect, what is the effect
of climate change on it and what new synergetic effects occur
under rapidly changing environmental conditions? Finally,
what are state and potential possibilities of forest mitigation
and adaptation to climate change in a polluted environment?
These issues are becoming increasingly more relevant also due
to our limited knowledge on the effect of surface ozone on the
physiological processes in plants or forest sustainability. Despite
all scientific efforts the knowledge gaps in understanding the
impacts of climate change on environmental pollution, on forest
health and productivity, on the carbon cycles and sequestration
in forest ecosystems, on the range and pace of shifts in biodiversity of local and alien species, on the disease, pest and fires in
forest ecosystems, and on the weakening of resistance against
new environmental threats remain.
The Conference focused on the significance of long term ecological research aiming at solving the main problem e reaction, and
sustainability of forest ecosystems, to changing air pollution and climatic conditions as well as their synergies. It is well established that
as a result of international legislation decreasing total emissions,
recent changes in tree condition, in most cases could be attributed
to rapidly changing climatic conditions, mainly heat and drought
over the vegetation period as well as frost over the dormant period.
Atmospheric concentrations of the main contaminants including
acidifying species, nitrogen deposition and surface ozone play a predisposing, accompanying and only locally e a triggering role.
Air temperature and moisture are environmental factors that
clearly influence forest condition and growth, and both are predicted to change with changing climate. Warmer summers especially higher mean temperatures for July effectively affect growth
variation in North Europe, meanwhile in central Europe, warmer
dormant periods and higher precipitation amount over the growing
season occur. Extremely hot and dry summers were identified as
the main reason of a significant reduction in tree growth rate under
the effect of local pollution load (Juknys et al., 2013). The shift from
one-factor experiments to the multi-stressor effects with special
attention to the synergistic impact of air pollution and climatic
changes on forest ecosystems, are considered as the most important fields of forest research.
Alien tree species, growing outside their natural distribution
range, demonstrate high sensitivity to frost over the winter month
as well as drought and heat over the growing season (Augustaitis
et al., 2012). It came into full agreement that under limiting ecological site conditions unfavorable meteorological factors are more significant to tree growth than in the sites under more favorable
conditions.
0269-7491/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.09.004
Please cite this article in press as: Augustaitis, A., et al., Biological reactions of forests to climate change and air pollution, Environmental Pollution (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.09.004
2
Editorial / Environmental Pollution xxx (2013) 1e2
Ozone (O3), as accompanying agent of climate changes, is also
among key factors resulting in spatial and temporal changes of
tree crown condition and productivity. In contrast to SO2, the
continuing rise in the emissions of precursor substances (e.g.
VOC, NO, NO2) in conjunction with increase in air temperature
should result in a rise in ozone concentrations. Since the middle
of the last century ozone air pollution has been recognized as a
major phytotoxic agent in North America and South Europe,
then recently, in Central and Northern Europe, and is now a
serious concern at global level. Therefore, air quality regulations
require correct and science-based description of the processes
leading to reduction of plant growth as well as to other adverse
physiological effects. Plant protection regulations in the European
Union are based on an exposure index derived from ozone concentration data, but the recent scientific evidence shows that
the physical parameter governing damage to vegetation is the
flux of ozone through stomata (Paoletti and Manning, 2007).
Newest developments of modeling, including both physiological
(stomatal flux) and environmental conditions were discussed.
Correct measurements and models of stomatal ozone uptake by
vegetation are essential to develop a new worldwide approach
for plant protection.
Some uncertainties on forest health assessment could be
reduced by means of remote sensing technologies, which include
aerial photography, satellite images, and laser scanning for collecting data on environmental changes in the past, present and future
(Masaitis et al., 2013; Eigirdas et al., 2013; Mozgeris and Augustaitis,
2013). These new technologies might help to develop reliable scenarios of climate change and air pollution effects on forest adaptation and mitigation abilities and develop new linkages between
researchers, data providers and product end-users. Theoretical basis rely on different reflecting properties of needles of damaged vs.
tolerant to air pollutants trees. Color-infrared orthophoto maps
were discussed as a potential data source to provide forest health
characteristics including LAI within the frames of standwise forest
inventories.
This special section of Environmental Pollution includes five
peer-reviewed contributions from this conference. The papers
investigate traditional air pollutants, namely sulfur and nitrogen
deposition (H
unová et al., 2013), ozone (Zhang et al., 2013;
Watanabe et al., 2013) and particulates (Burkhardt and Pariyar,
2013), as well as emerging pollutants such as perchlorate (Grantz
et al., 2013). A main focus in all the papers is on the interactions between pollutant and climate factors. As an example, Burkhardt and
Pariyar demonstrated that hygroscopic air pollutants decrease tree
drought tolerance. We wish that scientifically-sound strategies for
the adaptation of forest ecosystems to air pollution and climate
change can be based on those results.
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Algirdas Augustaitis*
Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu 13,
Kaunas Distr., Lithuania
Andrzej Bytnerowicz
USDA Forest Service, 4955 Canyon Crest Drive, Riverside,
CA 92507, USA
Elena Paoletti
IPP-CNR, Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino,
Firenze, Italy
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected],
[email protected] (A. Augustaitis).
28 August 2013
Please cite this article in press as: Augustaitis, A., et al., Biological reactions of forests to climate change and air pollution, Environmental Pollution (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.09.004