Microclimate temperature effects propagate across scales in forest ecosystems.

Abstract

Context: Forest canopies shape subcanopy environments, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Empirical forest microclimate studies are often restricted to local scales and short-term effects, but forest dynamics unfold at landscape scales and over long time periods.

Objectives: We developed the first explicit and dynamic implementation of microclimate temperature buffering in a forest landscape model and investigated effects on simulated forest dynamics and outcomes.

Methods: We adapted the individual-based forest landscape and disturbance model iLand to use microclimate temperature for three processes [decomposition, bark beetle (Ips typographus L.) development, and tree seedling establishment]. We simulated forest dynamics with or without microclimate temperature buffering in a temperate European mountain landscape under historical climate and disturbance conditions.

Results: Temperature buffering effects propagated from local to landscape scales. After 1,000 simulation years, average total carbon and cumulative net ecosystem productivity were 2% and 21% higher, respectively, and tree species composition differed in simulations including versus excluding microclimate buffering. When microclimate buffering was included, Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) increased by 9% and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) decreased by 12% in mean basal area share. Some effects were amplified across scales, such as a mean 16% decrease in local-scale bark beetle development rates resulting in a mean 45% decrease in landscape-scale bark beetle-caused mortality.

Conclusions: Microclimate effects on forests scaled nonlinearly from stand to landscape and days to millennia, underlining the utility of complex simulation models for dynamic upscaling in space and time. Microclimate temperature buffering can alter forest dynamics at landscape scales.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02054-8.