Urban and Periurban Forest Habitat Suitability: Current Fitness and Future Trends Under Climate Change Scenario

Habitat suitability models have been largely discussed and debated in the last two decades (Austin, 2007). Their application on conservation issues and assessment of climate change impacts on rural landscapes are largely documented in literature. Here we propose to asses the actual and future suitability of European dominant trees and forest types covering urban and periurban forests. Habitat suitability Classification Tree models were computed for the 20 most common European tree species and for Forest types (c.f. forest categories defined according to EEA technical report n9/2006). Models are built at the European extent to integrate the whole species range and estimate correctly each biota¿s ecological niche. Habitat suitability distribution output maps of 1km resolution where plotted in Urban and Periurban Forested areas to asses actual fitness of species to their environment. 10 European capitals including Berlin, Brussels, Helsinki, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Rome and Vienna where taken into account. Finally, IPCC SRES A1B future scenario was applied to the suitability model and we tested trends of vegetation suitability shift for the next century. Results shows how European urban forests are partially unfitted to actual suitability and a general trend of suitability changes in the next century. Those trends could force our urban forest management scheme and practices to adapt to a pressure of landscape changes at local level

CASALEGNO Stefano;  DURRANT Tracy; 

2008-12-17

Finnish Forest Research Institute

JRC43463