Pieter Vangansbeke's research while affiliated with Ghent University and other places
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Publications (80)
Responses to climate change have often been found to lag behind the rate of warming that has occurred. In addition to dispersal limitation potentially restricting spread at leading range margins, the persistence of species in new and unsuitable conditions is thought to be responsible for apparent time‐lags. Soil seed banks can allow plant communiti...
Phosphorus mining in grassland restoration. A win-win for agriculture and nature? Natuurfocus 21(4): 156-164. [in Dutch]
The restoration of Nardus grasslands on former agricultural fields is impeded by the phosphorus that has accumulated in the soil due to repeated fertilization. We discuss phosphorus removal with biomass via mowing (no fertilizati...
Forest fragmentation increases the proportion of edge area and this, in turn, induces changes in forest structure,
species composition and microclimate. These factors are also strongly determined by the forest management
regime. Although the interactive effects of edges and density on forest plant communities have been extensively
studied, little i...
Aim:
The amount of forest edges is increasing globally due to forest fragmentation and land-use changes. However, edge effects on the soil seed bank of temperate forests are still poorly understood. Here, we assessed edge effects at contrasting spatial scales across Europe and quantified the extent to which edges can preserve the seeds of forest s...
Context
Plant populations in agricultural landscapes are mostly fragmented and their functional connectivity often depends on seed and pollen dispersal by animals. However, little is known about how the interactions of seed and pollen dispersers with the agricultural matrix translate into gene flow among plant populations.
Objectives
We aimed to i...
The climate is changing rapidly, provoking species to shift their ranges poleward and upslope. We currently lack a mechanistic understanding of the effect of warmer temperatures on plants, especially for seasonally distinct patterns. Spring geophytes are emblematic forest plants that have a short aboveground lifecycle in the first half of the year...
Biological communities are reshuffling owing to species range shifts in response to climate change. This process inherently leads to novel assemblages of interacting species. Yet, how climatic change and local dynamics in biotic interactions jointly affect range shifts is still poorly understood. We combine a unique long‐term transplant competition...
Quercus spp. are one of the most important tree genera in temperate deciduous forests in terms of biodiversity, economic and cultural perspectives. However, natural regeneration of oaks, depending on specific environmental conditions, is still not sufficiently understood. Oak regeneration dynamics are impacted by climate change, but these climate i...
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...
Global change is causing ecosystems to change at unprecedented rates and the urgency to quantify ecological change is high. We therefore need all possible sources of ecological data to address key knowledge gaps. Ground‐based photos are a form of remote sensing and an unconventional data source with a high potential to improve our understanding of...
Climate warming is affecting ecosystems worldwide, and slow‐colonizing forest understorey species are particularly vulnerable if they are unable to track climate change. However, species' responses to climatic conditions in terms of growth, reproduction and colonization capacity may vary with the distance to their distribution range edge. Anemone n...
The climate is changing rapidly, with potentially strong effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, compared to the macroclimate, the microclimate in forests is very different, with less fluctuations and mainly lower maximum temperatures. This microclimate buffering is variable through space and time and largely depends on forest stru...
(Semi‐)natural ecosystems provide many important benefits to nature and people, but are often located near populated and urbanized areas across the globe. During recreational activities, many people bring dogs into peri‐urban forests and nature, but their nutrient inputs per unit space and time via dog faeces and urine into ecosystems remain scarce...
Climate change causes species to shift their distributions. Individual species, however, greatly vary in their capacity to track the macroclimatic temperature increase due to differences in demography and dispersal. To better predict range shifts to climate change we need a complementary integration of long‐term empirical data and predictive modell...
Global forest cover is heavily fragmented. Due to high edge-to-surface ratios in small forest patches, a large proportion of forests is affected by edge influences involving steep microclimatic gradients. Although forest edges are important ecotones and account for 20% of the global forested area, it remains unclear how biotic and abiotic drivers a...
Forest canopies buffer macroclimatic temperature fluctuations. However, we do not know if and how the capacity of canopies to buffer understorey temperature will change with accelerating climate change. Here we map the difference (offset) between temperatures inside and outside forests in the recent past and project these into the future in boreal,...
Ecological research heavily relies on coarse-gridded climate data based on standardized temperature measurements recorded at 2 m height in open landscapes. However,
many organisms experience environmental conditions that differ substantially from
those captured by these macroclimatic (i.e. free air) temperature grids. In forests, the
tree canopy f...
Forests harbour large spatiotemporal heterogeneity in canopy structure. This variation drives the microclimate and light availability at the forest floor. So far, we do not know how light availability and sub‐canopy temperature interactively mediate the impact of macroclimate warming on understorey communities. We therefore assessed the functional...
The global role of tree-based climate change mitigation is widely recognized; trees sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon, and woody biomass has an important role in the future biobased economy. In national carbon and biomass budgets, trees growing in hedgerows and tree rows are often allocated the same biomass increment data as forest-grow...
• Climate change, eutrophication and intensified forest management are affecting forest understorey plants, a major component of forest biodiversity. The main impacts of these drivers have often been studied, but we lack a good understanding of how key understorey species are affected by potential interactive effects of these drivers and which spec...
Context
Evidence for effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on the viability of temperate forest herb populations in agricultural landscapes is so far based on population genetic studies of single species in single landscapes. However, forest herbs differ in their life histories, and landscapes have different environments, structures and histori...
Monitoring climate change, and its impacts on ecological, agricultural, and other societal systems, is often based on temperature data derived from official weather stations. Yet, these data do not capture most microclimates, influenced by soil, vegetation and topography, operating at spatial scales relevant to the majority of organisms on Earth. D...
Despite the crucial role of the seed bank in forest conservation and dynamics, the effects of forest edge microclimate and climate warming on germination responses from the forest seed bank are still almost unknown. Here, we investigated edge effects on the realised seed bank and seedling community in two types of European temperate deciduous fores...
Agroforestry can contribute significantly to carbon sequestration in agricultural lands, as carbon accumulates both in tree biomass and the soil. One of the oldest, yet declining, forms of agroforestry in Europe are hedgerow-bordered fields. An analysis of historical maps of our study area in Belgium shows that 70% of the hedgerow network was clear...
1. Forest biodiversity worldwide is affected by climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, and today 20 % of the forest area is located within 100 m of a forest edge. Still, forest edges harbour a substantial amount of terrestrial biodiversity, especially in the understorey. The functional and phylogenetic diversity of forest edges have never...
Motivation
Detailed knowledge on the climatic tolerances of species is crucial to understand, quantify and predict the impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem functions. However, quantitative data are limited; often, only expert‐based qualitative estimates are available. With the ClimPlant database, we capitalize on the link between...
1. The vast majority of plant biodiversity associated with temperate forests is harboured by the understorey layer. This layer also plays crucial roles in ecosystem functions such as tree regeneration, nutrient cycling and carbon dynamics. Research using space‐for‐time substitutions and resurveys of vegetation plots has shown that climate warming,...
Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...
Forest microclimates contrast strongly with the climate outside forests. To fully understand and better predict how forests' biodiversity and functions relate to climate and climate change, microclimates need to be integrated into ecological research. Despite the potentially broad impact of microclimates on the response of forest ecosystems to glob...
Converting data from national forest inventories to carbon stocks for greenhouse gas reporting generally relies on biomass expansion factors (BEFs) that expand stem volumes to whole tree volumes. However, BEFs for trees outside forests like trees in hedgerows are not yet included in the IPCC reports. These are expected to be different from forest t...
Terrestrial laser scans were acquired for 69 trees (Quercus robur: 39 trees; Alnus glutinosa: 19 trees; Betula pendula: 11 trees) in hedgerows and tree rows in agricultural lands in Flanders, Belgium. We used a RIEGL VZ-1000 terrestrial laser scanner (RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH, Austria) with a beam divergence of 0.35 mrad operating in th...
Numerous decision-makers have an interest in how forest biodiversity and functioning will alter under environmental change. These decision-makers may have varied motivations underlying their management response to environmental change by focusing on contrasting management challenges and targets. Decision-makers may use different tools to aid their...
Aim
Variation in plant defence traits has been frequently assessed along large‐scale macroclimatic clines. In contrast, local‐scale changes in the environment have recently been proposed to also modulate plant defence traits. Yet, the relative importance of drivers at both scales has never been tested. We aimed to quantify the relative importance o...
Biological communities accumulate a climatic (thermal) debt when their response to warming does not keep up with the warming rate itself. Forest understory plant communities appear to respond particularly slowly to warming, and thus climatic debts are commonly observed in forest under-story plant communities (1, 2). In line with conventional approa...
Canopy structure and composition are important determinants of spatial and temporal variation in forest microcli-mate (1, 2). Accordingly, we inferred the microclimate from macroclimate data and the modulating effect of the canopy layer [figure 1B in Zellweger et al. (3)]. Bertrand et al. (4) used our data to separately analyze the effects of macro...
Forests play a key role in global carbon cycling and sequestration. However, the potential for carbon drawdown is affected by forest fragmentation and resulting changes in microclimate, nutrient inputs, disturbance and productivity near edges. Up to 20% of the global forested area lies within 100 m of an edge and, even in temperate forests, knowled...
Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...
The restoration of Nardus grasslands is often hampered by high bioavailability of soil phosphorus and disturbed soil communities. In order to better understand these bottlenecks, we studied Nardus grassland species grown together in communities with fast-growing species in 50-liter pots along a gradient of bioavailable phosphorus with or without in...
Background and aims – Common juniper (Juniperus communis L.) is one of the most widespread woody species on the planet. Over recent decades, however, common juniper populations are decreasing in size and number in different regions. Lack of recruitment, caused by extremely low seed viability and the absence of suitable microsites for recruitment, i...
Biodiversity time series reveal global losses and accelerated redistributions of species, but no net loss in local species richness. To better understand how these patterns are linked, we quantify how individual species trajectories scale up to diversity changes using data from 68 vegetation resurvey studies of seminatural forests in Europe. Herb-l...
Local factors restrain forest warming
Microclimates are key to understanding how organisms and ecosystems respond to macroclimate change, yet they are frequently neglected when studying biotic responses to global change. Zellweger et al. provide a long-term, continental-scale assessment of the effects of micro- and macroclimate on the community com...
Forest edges are interfaces between forest interiors and adjacent land cover types. They are important elements in the landscape with almost 20% of the global forest area located within 100 m of the edge. Edges are structurally different from forest interiors, which results in unique edge influences on microclimate, functioning and biodiversity. Th...
Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...
Linear landscape elements such as hedgerows and road verges have the potential to mitigate the adverse effects of habitat fragmentation and climate change on species, for instance, by serving as a refuge habitat or by improving functional connectivity across the landscape. However, so far this hypothesis has not been evaluated at large spatial scal...
Intraspecific trait variation (ITV; i.e. variability in the mean and/or distribution of plant attribute values within species), can occur in response to multiple drivers. Environmental change and land‐use legacies could alter trait values within species directly, but also indirectly by changing the vegetation cover. Greater variability in environme...
In nature reserve Gulke Putten a management of mowing and hay removal on former agricultural fields with high soil phosphorus concentrations has resulted in a shift from grass-dominated to herb-rich vegetation. Species such as Cardamine pratensis, Leucanthemum vulgare, Centaurea jacea, Ranunculus acris and Trifolium pratense have replaced fast-grow...
Questions
Does the influence of forest edges on plant species richness and composition depend on forest management? Do forest specialists and generalists show contrasting patterns?
Location
Mesic, deciduous forests across Europe.
Methods
Vegetation surveys were performed in forests with three management types (unthinned, thinned 5‐10 years ago an...
In the published version, the author names were presented incorrectly. The forenames and surnames were switched for everyone, except for Michael P Perring.
Hedgerows constitute an additional non-forest woody biomass and carbon sink in the countryside. However, estimations of biomass potentials on regional and national scale often lack contributions from hedgerows, or these are inferred from 'forest data'. To maximize the role of the biosphere in mitigation, we must focus on and start with measurably r...
We sampled macro-moths on a weekly basis for 14 months on a tower in an ancient deciduous forest in Belgium. Light and bait traps were used at ground level and at 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 m height in the forest. We analysed total moth abundance along the vertical gradient and distribution patterns of individual species and families, using generalised l...
De vertaling van het Europese natuurbeleid (Habitat- en Vogelrichtlijn) naar regionaal niveau gebeurt via een reeks van instandhoudingsdoelstellingen. Kwantitatieve doelstellingen voor voor de speciale beschermingszone ‘Duingebieden inclusief IJzermonding en het Zwin’ (HBE2500001) omvatten een substantiële uitbreiding van duingrasland (2130), duinh...
Aim
Revisits of non‐permanent, relocatable plots first surveyed several decades ago offer a direct way to observe vegetation change and form a unique and increasingly used source of information for global change research. Despite the important insights that can be obtained from resurveying these quasi‐permanent vegetation plots, their use is prone...
• Moths are a diverse and abundant species group, playing important functional roles in many terrestrial ecosystems, as pollinators, herbivores and as bulk food for many other taxa.
• Forests are complex ecosystems and beside horizontal variation, they exhibit a very diverse vertical structure, creating a matrix of micro‐niches along the vertical...
Predicting how the timing of cyclic life‐history events, such as leafing and flowering, respond to climate change is of paramount importance due to the cascading impacts of vegetation phenology on species and ecosystem fitness. However, progress of this field is hampered by the relative scarcity, and geographic and phylogenetic bias, of long‐term p...
Pine plantations established on former heathland are common throughout Western Europe and North America. Such areas can continue to support high biodiversity values of the former heathlands in the more open areas, while simultaneously delivering ecosystem services such as wood production and recreation in the forested areas. Spatially optimizing wo...
Global environmental change is increasingly affecting species worldwide. One of the emblematic casualties among plants in several European countries is common juniper (Juniperus communis). Many populations of common juniper throughout its distribution range are declining. The relative lack of viable seed production, resulting in low probabilities f...
With a distribution range that covers most of the northern hemisphere, common juniper (Juniperus communis) has one of the largest ranges of all vascular plant species. In several regions in Europe, however, populations are decreasing in size and number due to failing recruitment. One of the main causes for this failure is low seed viability. Observ...
Competition for light has profound effects on plant performance in virtually all terrestrial ecosystems. Nowhere is this more evident than in forests, where trees create environmental heterogeneity that shapes the dynamics of forest-floor communities(1-3). Observational evidence suggests that biotic responses to both anthropogenic global warming an...
Global environmental changes such as climate change, overexploitation and human population growth increase the interest in woody biomass from forests as a resource for green energy, chemistry and materials. Whole Tree Harvesting (WTH) can provide additional woody biomass, mainly for bioenergy, by harvesting parts of the crown not harvested under co...
Due to the enhanced demands for woody biomass, it is increasingly relevant to assess possibilities to harvest forest residues in addition to logs. Here, eight strategies for whole tree harvesting from clear-cuts and early thinnings of pine (Pinus nigra) stands in northern Belgium are evaluated. A detailed cost analysis using the machine rate method...
Forest management in Western-Europe is evolving towards multifunctionality and higher levels of sustainability. Co-owned forest managing models, where different owners collaborate and forest users participate however, are still rather an exception of a rule. Bosland (literally forest-land) in Flanders (Belgium) is a statutory partnership of several...
Most range shift predictions focus on the dispersal phase of the colonization process. Because moving populations experience increasingly dissimilar nonclimatic environmental conditions as they track climate warming, it is also critical to test how individuals originating from contrasting thermal environments can establish in nonlocal sites. We ass...
Background and AimsEnvironmental change is increasingly impacting ecosystems worldwide. However, our knowledge about the interacting effects of various drivers of global change on sexual reproduction of plants, one of their key mechanisms to cope with change, is limited. This study examines populations of poorly regenerating and threatened common j...
Compositional changes through local extinction and colonization are inherent to natural communities, but human activities are increasingly influencing the rate and nature of the species being lost and gained. Biotic homogenization refers to the process by which the compositional similarity of communities increases over time through a non-random res...
Onze hele samenleving is afhankelijk van de natuur op aarde. Zo bieden ecosystemen ons onder andere voedsel en materiaal, zuiveren ze ons drinkwater en de lucht die we inademen en regelen ze ons klimaat. Toch staan vele ecosystemen op aarde onder zware druk door menselijke verstoring. De gevolgen van die verstoring kunnen dramatisch zijn voor de ec...
Citations
... Increasing temperatures in montane habitats causes "thermophilization" where high elevation cold-adapted plants are out competed and replaced by lower elevation warm-adapted plants which decreases the overall plant diversity (Gottfried et al. 2012). Temperate spring flowering geophytes may show decreased seedling emergence or flowering time delays when exposed to warmer winters which would reduce their distribution and abundance over time (Kwembeya 2021, Vangansbeke et al. 2022). The decrease in available plant diversity to herbivores has been predicted to affect the survival of montane mammals which rely upon them (Bhattacharyya et al. 2018). ...
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... Some studies suggest that the restoration of degraded lands through reforestation can create new ecological niches and ultimately contribute to the restoration of the soil microbial structure and function (Hart et al., 2005;Xiang et al., 2014). In fact, some emphasize the potential of microorganisms as "game-changers" in restoring soil functions (van der Putten et al., 2013;Coban et al., 2022) because soil microbial communities often reshuffle in response to shift in plant species diversity that occur during lands restoration (Sanczuk et al., 2022). Further, changes in microbial community structure can be used as an evaluation index of the effectiveness of the restoration processes (Xiao et al., 2016). ...
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... Combining the plot measurements with plot-level and landscape-level remote sensing will help to improve interpretations from satellite-based sensors. Use of spectral radiometers and cameras, either on platforms such as drones or kites or installed above plots at ITEX sites allows effective and efficient measurements of greening and flowering in plots and can be used to detect shifts in these variables in response to experimental and ambient climate change (e.g., Chen et al. 2010;Beamish et al. 2016;Depauw et al. 2022;May et al. 2022). A data base of plot photos at ITEX and other tundra sites linked to landscape images from plots and drone platforms has been established as part of the HiLDEN network (Assmann et al. 2019), which will be useful for analyses of the continued changes in species composition and abundance. ...
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... At present, species distribution models (SDM) are frequently used in studies, because of their relative flexibility and good discriminative and predictive ability. Species distribution models can use the relationship between species distribution points and local environmental variables to predict the potential distribution areas of species (Abdulwahab et al., 2022;Sanczuk et al., 2022). China is a vast territory; hence, covering this geography with biological field surveys is not realistically possible. ...