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• Forest canopy and tree saplings were severely affected during the 2018 and 2019 droughts. • Forest canopy experienced long-lasting drought-induced effects and consequently required a longer recovery time after the drought. • Fast sapling recovery indicates significant potential for forest management based on natural regeneration and recruitment. • Reduced sapling recovery led to their mortality. Forests worldwide are increasingly exposed to extreme weather events. Drought deteriorates the health, structure, and functioning of forests, which can lead to reduced diversity, decreased productivity, and increased tree mortality. Therefore, it is an urgent need to assess the impact of drought on tree species. Due to differences in tree physiology, saplings and mature trees are likely to respond specifically to drought conditions. In contrast to mature trees, little is known about the response of saplings to drought. Here, we combine in-situ field measurements for saplings of deciduous tree species with remote sensing for forest canopy to assess drought damage, recovery, and sapling mortality patterns during a centennial drought (2018, 2019) and beyond (2020). We measured 2051 saplings out of 214 plots in Central Germany. Forest canopy health was assessed using 10 × 10 m resolution satellite observations for the same locations. We (1) demonstrate that forest canopy exhibits long-lasting drought-induced effects, (2) show that saplings have a remarkable capacity to recover from drought and survive a subsequent drought, (3) demonstrate that reduced sapling recovery leads to their mortality, (4) reveal that drought damage on saplings increases from pioneer to non-pioneer species, and mortality is ranking from Sorbus aucuparia > Sambucus nigra > Fraxinus excelsior, Acer campestre, Frangula alnus > Ulmus glabra > Carpinus betulus > Betula pendula , Fagus sylvatica > Acer pseudoplatanus > Quercus petraea > Corylus avellana, Crataegus spp. , > Prunus avium, Quercus robur ; and (5) link drought response to site conditions, indicating that species diversity and winter precipitation as relevant indicators of tree health. If periods of drought become more frequent, as expected, this could negatively impact mid-term forest recovery, alter long-term tree species assemblages and reduce biodiversity and functional resilience of forest ecosystems. We suggest that models of forest response to drought should differentiate between the forest canopy and understory and also consider species-specific responses as we found a broad spectrum of responses within the same plant functional type of deciduous tree species in terms of drought damage and recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monitoring of land cover and land use change is critical for assessing the provision of ecosystem services. One of the sources for long-term land cover change quantification is through the classification of historical and/or current maps. Little research has been done on historical maps using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA). This study applied an object-based classification using eCognition tool for analyzing the land cover based on historical maps in the Main river catchment, Upper Franconia, Germany. This allowed land use change analysis between the 1850s and 2015, a time span which covers the phase of industrialization of landscapes in central Europe. The results show a strong increase in urban area by 2600%, a severe loss of cropland (−24%), a moderate reduction in meadows (−4%), and a small gain in forests (+4%). The method proved useful for the application on historical maps due to the ability of the software to create semantic objects. The confusion matrix shows an overall accuracy of 82% for the automatic classification compared to manual reclassification considering all 17 sample tiles. The minimum overall accuracy was 65% for historical maps of poor quality and the maximum was 91% for very high-quality ones. Although accuracy is between high and moderate, coarse land cover patterns in the past and trends in land cover change can be analyzed. We conclude that such long-term analysis of land cover is a prerequisite for quantifying long-term changes in ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought episodes are predicted to increase their intensity and frequency globally, which will have a particular impact on forest vitality, productivity, and species distribution. However, the impact of tree species interaction on forest vulnerability to drought is not yet clear. This study aims to assess how deciduous saplings react to drought and whether tree species diversity can buffer the impact of drought stress on tree saplings. Based on field measurements of crown defoliation and species diversity, vulnerability, drought recovery, and species interaction were analyzed. Fieldwork was carried out in Central Eastern Germany in 2018 during the vegetation season and repeated in 2019. Ten random saplings were measured in each of the 218 plots (15 × 15 m) with 2051 saplings in total out of 41 tree species. We found that 65% of the saplings experienced defoliation during the drought of 2018, of which up to 13% showed complete defoliation. At the species level, Fagus sylvatica L. and Betula pendula Roth. saplings were less affected (<55%), whereas Carpinus betulus L., Sorbus aucuparia L., and Frangula alnus Mill. saplings were the most affected (≥85%). One year later, in 2019, C. betulus and S. aucuparia had a faster recovery rate than F. sylvatica, B. pendula, Quercus spp., and Crataegus spp. (p < 0.001). Furthermore, we showed that forest stands with high sapling species diversity had a reduced vitality under drought stress (p < 0.001), indicating a higher competition for resources. The study provides evidence that F. sylvatica saplings can withstand and survive to persistent drought. Species-specific responses to drought are essential to be considered for implementing adaptive forest management strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, the Tajogaite Volcano erupted along the western slope of the Cumbre Vieja on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Volcanic tephra blanketed a substantial proportion of the island. By our estimations, approximately 23,000,000 m 3 of pyroclastic ashes and more coarse-grained particles were deposited unto La Palma's land surface in addition to the lava flow. Five months following the initial eruption, we measured the depth of the new ash layer across the island. We combined this data with drone-based observations to compile a dataset comprising the point distribution of ash depth. A spatial interpolation was then performed using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) to estimate the ash depth across the island at a 2 m spatial resolution. The interpolation performed well, yielding a root mean squared error (RMSE) value of 0.34 and thus, the dataset offers immense reuse potential for spatial inquiries related to evolutionary traits, vegetation patterns, and vegetation response to disturbance on oceanic islands. In addition, the data can be used to test different spatial interpolation techniques in an effort to improve the accuracy achieved using IDW., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.)