Climate change and water use: can increased diversity help protect forests?

Forests provide habitat to more than 65% of terrestrial biodiversity, yet are being eliminated or greatly simplified at an alarming rate under global change (GC). Current forestry practices tend to favour a handful of species, without considering resilience of resulting forests to GC. During the past two decades, studies have investigated the complex relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem service provision to humanity. Biodiversity and ecosystem function research (BEF) has prompted the establishment of forest experiments and research networks to better understand consequences of biodiversity loss. There is undoubtedly an increasing interest in Canada and internationally to evaluate the potential role of maintaining diversity in managed forests and plantations to increase productivity and resilience. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Alain Paquette

Student:

Enrick Potiron

Partner:

Ouranos Inc

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Forestry

University:

Program: