Dynamics and Diversity of Temperate and Boreal Forests in the face of Global Change

Temperate and boreal forests are crucial ecosystems for regulating global carbon fluxes and providing major societal services. Found at higher latitudes, temperate and boreal forests are particularly susceptible to global-change drivers, such as climate warming. For instance, drought has become a worsening stress factor in temperate and boreal forests, and has consequently reduced productivity and caused forest dieback. Changes in fire regimes are also altering the composition and dynamics of both temperate and boreal forests in America and Eurasia, due to the increase of wildfire, and comparatively the decrease of fire-return interval. These regimes include both fire exclusion from fire dependent temperate and boreal forests, as well as more recent concerns over increased wildfire due to increased drought caused by climate warming.

In this Research Topic collection we invite researchers to submit manuscripts along the following themes:
- Forest dynamics in temperate and boreal forests (recruitment, growth, mortality, successional dynamics, disturbances) as impacted by global change.
- Manuscript contributions that deal with global-change drivers at local, regional and continental scales affecting temperate and boreal forests and related to the following issues: functional diversity and responses to disturbances in temperate forests; extension, sensitivity to climate warming and carbon fluxes in the case of boreal forests.
- Interdisciplinary research, observational field studies, experiments or manipulations, meta-analyses, reviews or modeling approaches are also welcome.

Keywords: Temperate forests, Boreal forests, Forest ecosystems, Global carbon fluxes, Global Change, Climate change, Drought, Fire, Forest fires, Dynamics, Forest composition, Forest growth, Forest mortality, Successional dynamics, Forest disturbances, Climate warming

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.