Climate-Driven Forest Disturbance: Monitoring, Mechanisms, and Ecological Effects

Climate change is fundamentally altering disturbance regimes in forests worldwide, leading to an increased frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. These climate-driven disturbances are no longer just local phenomena; they are becoming systemic drivers of ecosystem change, sometimes pushing forests beyond critical resilience thresholds. While advances in satellite remote sensing and ecological modeling have greatly improved our capacity to detect and monitor these events, a comprehensive understanding of their cascading ecological effects remains fragmented. Specifically, the long-term dynamics of post-disturbance recovery, and their implications for carbon cycling and climate feedback, are not yet fully integrated into our current frameworks. This necessitates interdisciplinary research that bridges monitoring, mechanistic understanding, and predictive modeling to capture the complex interplay between forest ecosystems and a rapidly changing climate.The primary goal of this Research Topic is to address critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of how climate extremes drive forest disturbances and shape post-disturbance ecosystem trajectories. A key challenge lies in transitioning from simple detection of disturbance events to a process-based understanding that can predict forest resilience and long-term carbon dynamics. For instance, while we have a growing global database of forest loss, our ability to forecast whether a disturbed forest will recover to its pre-disturbance state or shift to a new ecosystem state is still nascent. Furthermore, the complex feedback loops between disturbance-affected carbon fluxes and future climate conditions are often underrepresented in current Earth system models.To achieve this, we invite contributions that push the boundaries of current methodologies. We aim to foster a dialogue between researchers using novel time-series algorithms to map disturbance severity and those developing mechanistic models of tree mortality and recovery. We encourage studies that explore the interaction between multiple disturbances (e.g., fire followed by drought) and their compound effects on forest structure and function. By integrating these diverse approaches, we hope to develop a more holistic and predictive framework for managing and understanding forests in an era of unprecedented environmental change.This Research Topic welcomes original research, reviews, and methodological advances that explore the intersection of climate extremes and forest disturbances. We seek contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:1) Novel Monitoring: Advanced time-series analysis and remote sensing (e.g., LiDAR, SAR, high-resolution optical) for detecting and characterizing disturbance agents (e.g., fire, drought, windthrow).2) Mechanisms of Disturbance: Physiological and ecological processes that determine forest vulnerability and resilience to climate extremes.3) Ecological Effects: Studies on post-disturbance recovery, vegetation shifts, biodiversity changes, and landscape-level patterns.4) Carbon Dynamics & Feedback: Quantifying the impact of disturbances on carbon stocks and fluxes, and their potential to feedback on the climate system through greenhouse gas emissions and altered albedo.We are particularly interested in integrative studies that combine two or more of these areas (e.g., modeling based on monitoring data). All manuscript types (Original Research, Reviews, Methods, and Perspectives) are welcome. Topic editors: Zhijiang Zhang, Lei Fang, Jie Zhao, Xinxin Li, Chao Ding Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84577/climate-driven-forest-disturbance-monitoring-mechanisms-and-ecological-effects