Mar 25, 2025
Tree diversity helps reduce heat peaks in forests
The BEF-China experiment in subtropical China. It is the world’s largest field experiment with planted trees, and one of iDiv’s key research platforms
A forest with high tree-species diversity is better at buffering heat peaks in summer and cold peaks in winter than a forest with fewer tree species. This is the result of a study carried out in the large-scale planted forest experiment “BEF-China” and published in the journal Ecology Letters. It provides yet another argument for diversifying tree species in forests, especially under ongoing climate change.
Link Media Release iDiv:
https://www.idiv.de/tree-diversity-helps-reduce-heat-peaks-in-forests/
Original publication:
Florian Schnabel, Rémy Beugnon, Bo Yang, Ronny Richter, Nico Eisenhauer, Yuanyuan Huang, Xiaojuan Liu, Christian Wirth, Simone Cesarz, Andreas Fichtner, Maria D. Perles-Garcia, Georg J. A. Hähn, Werner Härdtle, Matthias Kunz, Nadia C. Castro Izaguirre, Pascal A. Niklaus, Goddert von Oheimb, Bernhard Schmid, Stefan Trogisch, Manfred Wendisch, Keping Ma, Helge Bruelheide (2025). Tree diversity increases forest temperature buffering via enhancing canopy density and structural diversity. Ecology Letters 28: e70096. DOI: 10.1111/ele.70096