Non-native insects, pathogens and plants are reshaping forest composition, undermining ecosystem services, and imposing rising costs on forest owners and entire society. We anchor this thematic area through the Forest Invasion Synthesis Centre, Prague (FISC; https://www.forestinvasion.cz/) – a research hub funded by the EU Horizon Europe programme, and led by Dr. Andrew “Sandy” M. Liebhold.
FISC integrates ecology, entomology, forest pathology, economics, data science and the social sciences to address three connected questions:
Current research strands include the outbreak dynamics of invasive forest insects, pathways of unintentional introduction and the limits of border interception data, plant–herbivore and plant–pathogen interactions in invasion success, the population and evolutionary genetics of invading species, and interactions between invasions, climate change and other forest disturbances.
FISC applies the synthesis centre model and is, to our knowledge, the first such centre in Central and Eastern Europe dedicated to forest invasions. Rather than generating primary field data alone, FISC brings together existing global datasets, theory and disciplinary expertise to produce novel insights.
https://www.forestinvasion.cz/core-team/
More information on our team, working groups, outputs and open calls is available at www.forestinvasion.cz.
Disturbance regimes in European forests are changing rapidly, reshaping forest structure, carbon balance and timber supply. Our research traces the drivers and impacts of these dynamics, with a primary focus on the Central European context – droughts, windthrows, bark beetle outbreaks and rising wildfire risk.
We integrate field surveys, remote sensing and process-based simulation models to address three connected areas:
We specifically study outbreak dynamics and management of European spruce bark beetle, for a reason: the Czech Republic was one of Europe’s outbreak epicentres and witnessed a large-scale regime change – the transition from wind-driven to drought-driven outbreaks – a development with far-reaching consequences. At the same time, the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences at CZU is one of Europe’s hubs of bark beetle research, spanning management, chemical ecology and genetics, which generates important synergies.
We map disturbance and recovery dynamics across the Czech Republic using remote sensing, supported by extensive field surveys. We operate a network of ca. 1000 repeatedly inventoried forest plots, complemented by high-resolution drone imaging. These data are combined with long-term management records from across the country to disentangle the effects of different disturbance agents and detect changes in disturbance regimes.
Process-based models are essential tools for understanding how climate change, disturbances and management shape the long-term forest dynamics. We actively use and contribute to the development of two ecosystem models – the individual-based forest landscape model iLand and the biogeochemical model BiomeBGCMuSo – and apply them across a range of questions in forest ecology and management.
We are primarily addressing three connected areas:
We operate iLand in three forest landscapes – one in Slovakia and two in the Czech Republic – involving both actively managed forests and a national park. We also run the model at around 100 forest plots across Czechia, spanning different management histories and site conditions, with detailed inventory data on forest structure and biodiversity. BiomeBGCMuSo is operated across a large-scale design of simulation plots stretching from Croatia to northern Poland.
To be completed
