Miquel De Cáceres

Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications | CREAF · Ecosystem Modelling Facility

Second-growth forest establishment over abandoned agricultural lands has been envisaged as a nature-based solution to reduce atmospheric CO2 through carbon sequestration. However, we still have a very limited knowledge about the climate sensitivity of these second-growth forests in comparison to forests with a more continuous land-use history. Here...

Global radiation is a key climate input in process-based models (PBMs) for forests, as it determines photosynthesis, transpiration and the canopy energy balance. While radiation is highly variable at a fine spatial resolution in complex terrain due to shadowing effects, the data required for PBMs that are currently available over large extents are...

The consequences of climate change continue to threaten European forests, particularly for species located at the edges of their latitudinal and altitudinal ranges. While extensively studied in Central Europe, European beech forests require further investigation to understand how climate change will affect these ecosystems in Mediterranean areas. P...

Global radiation is a key climate input in forest process-based models (PBM) as it determines photosynthesis, transpiration and the canopy energy balance. While radiation is highly variable at fine spatial resolution in complex terrain due to shadowing effects, data required for PBM currently available over large extents are generally at spatial re...

The study of the water cycle in the forest at large scales, such as countries, is challenging due to the difficulty of correctly estimating forest water flows. Hydrological models can be coupled with extensive forest data sources, such as national forest inventories, to estimate the water flow of forests over large extents, but so far the studies c...

Process-based forest models combine biological, physical, and chemical process understanding to simulate forest dynamics as an emergent property of the system. As such, they are valuable tools to investigate the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems. Specifically, they allow testing of hypotheses regarding long-term ecosystem dynamics and...

In Catalonia, river flows lost 5 to 10% in each of the last decade, depending on watersheds. This was not only the result of climate change, but also largely to land and forest abandonment leading to vegetation densification. Implementing a new adaptive management based on the reduction of vegetation density in watersheds may help reducing evapotra...

Tree growth is a key uncertainty in projections of forest productivity and the global carbon cycle. While global vegetation models commonly represent tree growth as a carbon assimilation (source)-driven process, accumulating evidence points toward widespread non-photosynthetic (sink) limitations. Notably, growth biophysical potential, defined as th...

Worldwide, ecosystems are suffering important taxonomic and functional modifications in response to anthropogenic disturbances, operating at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Awareness on biodiversity losses has led to the adoption of conservation policies and the development of programs devoted to the conservation and the restoration of terres...

Plant hydraulics is crucial for assessing the plants' capacity to extract and transport water from the soil up to their aerial organs. Along with their capacity to exchange water between plant compartments and regulate evaporation, hydraulic properties determine plant water relations, water status and susceptibility to pathogen attacks. Consequentl...

The study of the water cycle in the forest at large scales, such as countries, is challenging due to the difficulty of correctly estimating forest water flows. Hydrological models can be coupled to extensive forest data sources, such as national forest inventories, to estimate the water flow of forests over large extents, but so far the studies con...

Background Current assessments of the effects of climate change on future wildfire risk are based on either empirical approaches or fire weather indices. No study has yet used process-based models over national scales to understand how and where will increases in climate aridity affect the likelihood of fire activity through changes in the moisture...

Understanding ecological dynamics has been a central topic in ecology since its origins. Yet, identifying dynamic regimes remains a research frontier for modern ecology. The concept of ecological dynamic regime (EDR) emerged to emphasize the dynamic property of steady states in nature and refers to the fluctuations of ecosystems around some trend o...

Regional-level applications of dynamic vegetation models are challenging because they need to accommodate the variation in plant functional diversity, which requires moving away from broadly defined functional types. Different approaches have been adopted in the last years to incorporate a trait-based perspective into modeling exercises. A common p...

Key message We present a relational database containing compositional and structural characteristics of 575 permanent 100 m ² shrubland plots distributed in the NE of Iberian peninsula. The datasets provide valuable information about shrubland fuels to improve fire danger prediction, study vegetation dynamics in relation to drought and fire or test...

Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD, atmospheric drought) and soil water potential (Ψsoil, soil drought) have both been reported to affect terrestrial plant water stress, plant functions (growth, stomatal conductance, transpiration) and vulnerability to ecosystem disturbances (mortality or vulnerability to wildfires). Which of atmospheric drought or soil d...

Long‐term monitoring programs are fundamental to detect changes in ecosystem health and understand ecological processes. In the current context of increasing anthropogenic threats on marine ecosystems, understanding the dynamics and response of communities becomes essential. We used data collected over 14 years in the REBENT benthic coastal inverte...

Vegetation structure affects the vulnerability of a forest to drought events and wildfires. Management decisions, such as thinning intensity and type of understory treatment, influence competition for water resources and amount of fuel available. While heavy thinning effectively reduces tree water stress and intensity of a crown fire, the duration...

Fuel moisture content (FMC) is a crucial driver of forest fires in many regions world‐wide. Yet, the dynamics of FMC in forest canopies as well as their physiological and environmental determinants remain poorly understood, especially under extreme drought. We embedded a FMC module in the trait‐based, plant‐hydraulic SurEau‐Ecos model to provide in...

Species response to land use can be examined under a functional perspective, where habitats are described according to species´ resource dependencies. Distribution or abundance models based on resource availability rather than land use types can be more informative about the ultimate processes behind observed population or distribution trends. Habi...

Regional-level applications of dynamic vegetation models are challenging because they need to accommodate the variation in plant functional diversity, which requires moving away from broadly-defined functional types. Different approaches have been adopted in the last years to incorporate a trait-based perspective into modeling exercises. A common p...

Mediterranean forests and fire regimes are closely intertwined. Global change is likely to alter both forest dynamics and wildfire activity, ultimately threatening the provision of ecosystem services and posing greater risks to society. In this paper we evaluate future wildfire behavior by coupling climate projections with simulation models of fore...

Previous investigations of the role of pathogens as drivers of community dynamics in forests have mostly focused on interspecific interactions between canopy trees and seedlings via soil feedbacks. However, feedbacks can also occur directly between canopy trees and seedlings when spores of foliar and stem pathogens fall onto seedlings regenerating...

Live Fuel Moisture Content (LFMC) is one of the main factors affecting forest ignitability as it determines the availability of existing live fuel to burn. Currently, LFMC is monitored through spectral vegetation indices or inferred from meteorological drought indices. While useful, neither approach provides mechanistic insights into species-specif...

En las últimas décadas, los bosques mediterráneos han presentado un nivel decreciente de presión humana directa, así como una mayor exposición a factores de estrés (p.ej. incendios forestales o sequías). Sin embargo, el efecto de estos fenómenos en los servicios que los ecosistemas (SE) proporcionan a la sociedad permanece sin explorar. Hemos emple...

A pesar del amplio conocimiento sobre la vulnerabilidad de los bosques mediterráneos a incendios, la variación espacial y temporal de los combustibles sigue siendo una cuestión raramente estudiada. En este estudio, partimos de la hipótesis de que la sensibilidad de los bosques al fuego responde principalmente a la variación en la carga de combustib...

Entender cómo la gestión forestal afecta a la resistencia de los bosques a múltiples perturbaciones es esencial para garantizar el cumplimento de los objetivos silvícolas. Muchas perturbaciones naturales, como sequías e incendios, a menudo suceden a la par y su impacto depende en gran medida de la estructura y composición del bosque, así como de la...

Fungi are responsible for many of the processes that occur in natural ecosystems and largely determine forest ecosystem dynamics, such as the ability of trees to access limiting nutrients and sequester carbon. Understanding and predicting climate change impacts on fungal dynamics over large scales is key in order to gain further insights into the e...

The vegan package provides tools for descriptive community ecology. It has most basic functions of diversity analysis, community ordination and dissimilarity analysis. Most of its multivariate tools can be used for other data types as well. The functions in the vegan package contain tools for diversity analysis, ordination methods and tools for th...

Drought-associated woody-plant mortality has been increasing in most regions with multi-decadal records and is projected to increase in the future, impacting terrestrial climate forcing, biodiversity and resource availability. The mechanisms underlying such mortality, however, are debated, owing to complex interactions between the drivers and the p...

En aquest document s'estableix una metodologia per calcular l'impacte de la gestió forestal multifuncional en tres factors clau de la mitigació i l'adaptació al canvi climàtic a la Mediterrània: el carboni, l'aigua i la biodiversitat. En aquesta primera versió, l'impacte de la gestió en el balanç de carboni s'ha obtingut per a les principals conífe...

Ecologists working with stable isotopes have to deal with complex datasets including temporal and spatial replication, which makes the analysis and the representation of patterns of change challenging, especially at high resolution. Due to the lack of a commonly accepted conceptual framework in stable isotope ecology, the analysis and the graphical...

Projecting forest dynamics as a function of alternative management strategies and climatic conditions is key to develop sound forest policy and management planning. In Spain there is a need for a full set of climate-sensitive individual-tree growth and yield models suitable for country-level simulations. In this paper we present environmentally dri...

Growing evidence that individuals of many generalist animals behave as resource specialists have attracted substantial research interest for its ecological and evolutionary implications. Variation in resource preferences is considered to be critical for developing a general theory of individual specialization. However, it remains to be shown whethe...

Minimum water potential (Ψmin) is a key variable for characterizing dehydration tolerance and hydraulic safety margins (HSMs) in plants. Ψmin is usually estimated as the absolute minimum tissue Ψ experienced by a species, but this is problematic because sample extremes are affected by sample size and the underlying probability distribution. We comp...

Mediterranean forests are prone to fire and highly diverse in environmental conditions, species composition, and forest structure. While much is known about fire hazard and forest responses to fire in Mediterranean climate regions, our understanding of the spatial distribution of fuel characteristics and their dynamics remains incomplete. We hypoth...

Key message We present a structured and curated database covering 21 years of LFMC measurements in the Catalan region, along with an associated R package to manage updates and facilitate quality processing and visualisation. The data set provides valuable information to study plant responses to drought and improve fire danger prediction. Dataset ac...

• Key message Total fidelity value index can be used for the assignment of new relevés to existing vegetation units and it can be used to refine classifications derived from unsupervised clustering. • Context Diagnostic species is an important concept in vegetation classification. Apart from its usefulness to characterize species niche preferences,...

The Mediterranean Region constitutes a biodiversity hotspot and its forests have provided multiple ecosystem services (ES) to human societies for millennia. In the last decades, many Mediterranean forests have undergone a decreasing level of direct human pressure and a growing exposure to environmental stress factors (e.g. wildfires and droughts)....

Understanding how water use and drought stress in woody plants change in relation to compositional, structural and environmental variability of mixed forests is key to understand their functioning and dynamics. Observational and experimental studies have so far shown a complex array of water use and drought stress responses to species mixing, but p...

Ecological research focuses on the spatio-temporal patterns of ecosystems and communities. The recently proposed framework of Community Trajectory Analysis considers community dynamics as trajectories in a chosen space of community resemblance and utilizes geometrical properties of trajectories to compare and analyse temporal changes. Here, we exte...

Increasing awareness of environmental impacts caused by anthropogenic activities highlights the need to determine indicators of environmental status that can be routinely assessed at large spatial and temporal scales. Microbial communities comprise the greatest share of biological diversity on Earth and can rapidly reflect recent environmental chan...

Growing evidence that individuals of many generalist animals behave as resource specialists has attracted research interest for its ecological and evolutionary implications. Although variation in resource preferences is critical for developing a general theory of individual specialization, it remains to be shown whether diverging preferences can ar...

Mediterranean forests play a key role in providing services and goods to society, and are currently threatened by global change. We assessed the future provision of ecosystem services by Mediterranean pine forests under a set of management and climate change scenarios, built by combining different regional policies and climate change assumptions. W...

Climate change projections over the Mediterranean basin point towards an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events that will directly impact ecosystems resilience. In this study we evaluated future trends of soil loss in forestland in Catalonia (NE Spain) due to fires and vegetation dynamics, considering the potential future impacts of...

Water content in living vegetation (or live fuel moisture content, LFMC), is increasingly recognized as a key factor linked to vegetation mortality and wildfire ignition and spread. Most often, empirical indices are used as surrogates for direct LFMC measurements. In this paper, we explore the functional and ecophysiological drivers of LFMC during...

Global warming is expected to increase droughts and heatwaves, and consequently fire danger in southern Europe in the forthcoming decades. However, an assessment of the uncertainties associated with this general trend at regional scales, relevant to decision-making, is still missing. This study aims at assessing potential climate change impacts on...

Efforts to develop mechanistic tree growth models are hindered by the uncertainty of whether and when tree growth responses to environmental factors are driven by carbon assimilation or by biophysical limitations of wood formation. In this study, we used multiannual weekly wood‐formation monitoring of two conifer species (Larix decidua and Picea ab...

Context Protected areas (PAs) are essential for biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services (ES), representing 15% of the earth’s surface and targeted to increase until 17% by 2020. But previous studies showed different results on the effectiveness of PAs in preserving ES and biodiversity, which has implications for landscape...

The extent to which water availability can be used to predict the enlargement and final dimensions of xylem conduits remains an open issue. We reconstructed the time course of tracheid enlargement in Pinus sylvestris trees in central Spain by repeated measurements of tracheid diameter on microcores sampled weekly during a 2 yr period. We analyzed t...

Key message Allometric biomass equations developed for individual shrubs can be applied to estimate shrubland fuels from measurements of cover and average height by species. Context Shrubs are a major component of surface fuels in many fire-prone ecosystems. Shrub fuel loading is often estimated by “double sampling”, where data from a destructive...

Understanding ecosystem vulnerability is essential in risk management to anticipate disasters. While valuable efforts have been made to characterize vulnerability components (exposure, sensitivity, and response capacity) at particular ecosystem stages, there is still a lack of context-specific studies accounting for the temporal dimension of vulner...

According to climate projections, global warming is associated with increasing temperatures and dry spells in some parts of the world, especially the Mediterranean area. However, it is quite challenging for the scientific community to assess the intensity of these changes, because (i) the trend relies on the greenhouse gases (GHG) emission scenario...

Key message We present a novel approach to define pure- and mixed-forest typologies from the comparison of pairs of forest plots in terms of species identity, diameter, and height of their trees. Context Forest typologies are useful for many purposes, including forest mapping, assessing habitat quality, studying forest dynamics, or defining sustai...

Fire regimes are shifting or are expected to do so under global change. Current fire suppression is not able to control all wildfires, and its capability to do so might be compromised under harsher climate conditions. Alternative fire management strategies may allow to counteract predicted fire trends, but we lack quantitative tools to evaluate the...

Ecologists have long been interested in how communities change over time. Addressing questions about community dynamics requires ways of representing and comparing the variety of dynamics observed across space. Until now, most analytical frameworks have been based on the comparison of synchronous observations across sites and between repeated surve...

Understanding ecosystem responses to compound disturbance regimes and the influence of specific sequences of events in determining ecosystem shifts remains a challenge. We use a modelling framework for Mediterranean‐type ecosystems to assess the effects of fire–drought interactions on long‐term vegetation dynamics and to identify disturbance‐driven...