Maria Potterf

Technische Universität München | TUM · Ecosystem dynamics and forest management group

Mitigating future forest risks, safeguarding timber revenues and improving biodiversity are key considerations for current boreal forest management. Alternatives to rotation forestry likely have an important role, but how they will perform under a changing climate remains unclear. We used a boreal forest growth simulator to explore how variations o...

Functional trait approaches are common in ecology, but a lack of clear hypotheses on how traits relate to environmental gradients (i.e., trait-niche relationships) often makes uncovering mechanisms difficult. Furthermore, measures of community functional structure differ in their implications, yet inferences are seldom compared among metrics. Commu...

Global climate change triggers to shift of bark beetle outbreaks to previously non-susceptible locations in the Far East region. Massive bark beetle outbreaks were not studied in Kunashir Island (Far East, Russian Federation) before. Only entomological studies on the determination of bark beetle species were carried out earlier. This provides an ex...

Purpose of Review Boreal forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services that are important to society. The boreal biome is experiencing the highest rates of warming on the planet and increasing demand for forest products. Here, we review how changes in climate and its associated extreme events (e.g., windstorms) are putting at risk the capacity...

Forest disturbances are intensifying globally, yet regional drivers of these dynamics remain poorly understood. We investigated recent disturbance intensities in Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) forests in Slovakia (Central Europe) with different management objectives in 2000-2017 based on Landsat imagery. We focused on 122 strict reserves without an...

Climate, topography and the 3D structure of forests are major drivers affecting local species communities. However, little is known about how the specific functional traits of saproxylic (wood‐living) beetles, involved in the recycling of wood, might be affected by those environmental characteristics. Here, we combine ecological and morphological t...

Landscape multifunctionality, a widely accepted challenge for boreal forests, aims to simultaneously provide timber, non-timber ecosystem services, and shelter for biodiversity. However, multifunctionality requires the use of novel forest management regimes optimally combined over the landscape, and an increased share of sets asides. It remains unc...

Various national policies guide forest use, but often with competing policy objectives leading to divergent management paradigms. Incoherent policies may negatively impact the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services (FES), and forest multifunctionality. There is uncertainty among policymakers about the impacts of policies on the real wor...

Biodiverse communities have been shown to sustain high levels of multifunctionality and thus a loss of species likely negatively impacts ecosystem functions. For most taxa, however, roles of individual species are poorly known. Rare species, often most likely to go extinct, may have unique traits and functional roles. Alternatively, rare species ma...

Climate change triggers a geographical shift of bark beetle outbreaks to previously non-susceptible locations. Massive bark beetle outbreaks were not studied on Kunashir Island (Far East, Russian Federation) before. This research covers windfall and bark beetle outbreaks in the period 2015- 2021 in the southern part of Kurilskiy Nature Reserve. The...

Abstract Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of traits in beetle community assembly and test for consistency in these effects among several bioclimatic regions. We asked (1) whether traits predicted species’ responses to environmental gradients (i.e. their niches), (2) whether these same traits could predict co- occurrence patt...

Wood-living beetles make up a large proportion of forest biodiversity and contribute to important ecosystem services, including decomposition. Beetle communities in managed southern boreal forests are less species rich than in natural and near-natural forest stands. In addition, many beetle species rely primarily on specific tree species. Yet, the...

COVID-19 crisis has emphasized how poorly prepared humanity is to cope with global disasters. However, this crisis also offers a unique opportunity to move towards a more sustainable and equitable future. Here, we identify the underlying environmental, social, and economic chronic causes of the COVID-19 crisis. We argue in favour of a holistic view...

Intensive extraction of forest resources lowers biodiversity and endangers the functioning of forest ecosystems. As such, alternative management regimes have emerged, aspiring to promote forest biodiversity and nature protection in managed forests. Among them, continuous cover forestry, (i.e. selective logging), has received considerable attention...

Research Highlights: Bark beetles are important agents of disturbance regimes in temperate forests, and specifically in a connected wind-bark beetle disturbance system. Large-scale windthrows trigger population growth of the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus L.) from endemic to epidemic levels, thereby allowing the killing of Norway spru...

Outbreaks of the European spruce bark beetle Ips typographus kill extensive areas of Norway spruce forests in Central Europe, affecting both protected areas and neighboring commercial forests. In protected areas, uncontrolled (non-intervention) management allows natural beetle-induced tree mortality, while in commercial forests infested trees are s...

The European spruce bark beetle Ips typographus L. causes significant economic losses in managed coniferous forests in Central and Northern Europe. New infestations either occur in previously undisturbed forest stands (i.e., spot initiation) or depend on proximity to previous years' infestations (i.e., spot spreading). Early identification of newly...

In recent decades, Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) forests of the High Tatra Mountains have suffered unprecedented tree mortality caused by European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus L.). Analysis of the spatiotemporal pattern of bark beetle outbreaks across the landscape in consecutive years can provide new insights into the population dyn...

The European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) causes widespread Norway spruce (Picea abies) mortality in European forests. The pattern of landscape-level tree mortality varies over the course of beetle outbreak and by the presence and location of active breeding sites. Increased understanding of rules governing the unmanaged spread of beetle-in...

The relationship between windthrow disturbance and outbreaks of European spruce bark beetle Ips typographus L. in European Norway spruce forests has been the focus of recent studies. However, the nature in which the spatial characteristics of windthrow events influence bark beetle population dynamics is rarely examined. This represents a significan...

Natural disturbances such as windthrow and bark beetle Ips typographus L. outbreak often affect protected areas with non-intervention type of management located in close proximity to managed forest stands. This raises concerns about the migration of the beetle outbreak from non-intervention zones to adjacent managed forests. In this study we analyz...

Automatic identification of forest patches disturbed by the spruce bark beetle Ips typographus L. is crucial to reveal the rules of following bark beetle outbreaks on the landscape scale. Landsat imagery provides free resources to outline past and present gradations of bark beetle outbreaks (BBOs). The objective of this study is to identify the mos...

A stack of Landsat images (resolution 30 m) is converted into Moisture Stress Index (MSI, Band5/Band4), sensitive to forest disturbances. Spectral trajectory is created by changing MSI values in the same pixel location [x,y] over time (1986-2011). Different types of disturbances should have different shapes of spectral trajectory hereby it is possi...

L'apparition des trouées forestières dans le milieu de forêt naturelle permet la meilleure pénétration de la lumière dans le peuplement. Cet effet permet le développement des espèces de la régénération naturelle qui ont germiné avant l'ouverture de la voûte et peuvent exister les premières années de leurs vie au-dessous de la canopée bien fermée. D...