Abstract
Climate change represents an important challenge for forest management and the silviculture of stands and it is known that climate change will have complex effects on cork oak forest ecosystems. North Africa and the Mediterranean basin are especially vulnerable to climate change. Under the effect of climate change, cork oak will disappear from a large area in the future, and the rest will migrate to higher altitudes and latitudes. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of climate change on the spatial distribution of Quercus suber L. and cork production in the Mediterranean area, and the risk of its exclusion by the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis Mill.) expansion. The literature review showed that up to 40% of current environmentally suitable areas for cork oak may be lost by 2070, mainly in northern Africa and the southern Iberian Peninsula. Temperature directly influences atmospheric evaporative demand and should affect cork productivity. Precipitation is the main factor that positively influences cork growth and several authors have confirmed the negative effect of drought on this growth. Currently, cork oak habitats are colonized in several places mainly by the Aleppo pine. Under climate change, Aleppo pine is projected to occupy higher altitude sites and several authors have predicted that current and future global warming will have a positive influence on Aleppo pine growth in wet sites. In the future and under climate change, there is a strong possibility that the Aleppo pine will colonize cork oak habitat. Finally, we proposed management practices to protect cork oak against climate change and Aleppo pine expansion.
Highlights
Climate change represents an important challenge for ecologists, biologists, and modelers, whose research interest is the study of the potential effect of climate change on ecosystem services provided by forests (Deal et al, 2017; Fréjaville et al, 2019)
Under the effect of climate change, cork oak will disappear from a large area in the future, and the rest will migrate to higher altitudes and latitudes
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of climate change on the spatial distribution of Quercus suber L. and cork production in the Mediterranean area, and the risk of its exclusion by the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis Mill.) expansion
Summary
Climate change represents an important challenge for ecologists, biologists, and modelers, whose research interest is the study of the potential effect of climate change on ecosystem services provided by forests (Deal et al, 2017; Fréjaville et al, 2019). Several authors have worked on the decline and dieback of cork oak (Quercus suber L.) forests in the Mediterranean basin: (i) Climate change impacts on cork forest decline in the Mediterranean basin: Cases of drought and/or heat-induced forest mortality, elevated CO2 concentration, high temperatures, water deficit, and (ii) Other factors affecting cork oak forest decline: Anthropic pressure and wildfire insect epidemics and disease problems of cork oak forest regeneration These authors ignored the phenomenon of the expansion of cork oak forests by other species (colonization), mainly the Aleppo pine in North Africa and in the Mediterranean area, which happens to be the main factor in the degradation of cork oak forests.
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