Towards a global understanding of tree mortality

Citation

International Tree Mortality Network (2025) Towards a global understanding of tree mortality. New Phytologist, 245 (6). https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20407

Abstract
Rates of tree mortality are increasing globally, with implications for forests and climate. Yet how and why these trends vary globally remains unknown. Developing a comprehensive assessment of global tree mortality will require systematically integrating data from ground-based long-term forest monitoring with large-scale remote sensing. We survey the metadata from 466,865 forest monitoring plots across 89 countries and five continents using questionnaires and discuss the potential to use these to estimate tree mortality trends globally. Our survey shows that the area monitored has increased steadily since 1960, but we also identify many regions with limited ground-based information on tree mortality. The integration of existing ground-based forest inventories with remote sensing and modelling can potentially fill those gaps, but this requires development of technical solutions and agreements that enable seamless flows of information from the field to global assessments of tree mortality. A truly global monitoring effort should promote fair and equitable collaborations, transferring funding to and empowering scientists from less wealthy regions. Increasing interest in forests as a natural climate solution, the advancement of new technologies, and world-wide connectivity means that now a global monitoring system of tree mortality is not just urgently needed, but also possible.

Keywords
disturbance; forest inventory; forest monitoring; remote sensing; tree dieback

Notes
International Tree Mortality Network members: Cornelius Senf, Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, Thomas A. M. Pugh, William R. L. Anderegg, Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira, Gabriel Arellano, Mirela Beloiu Schwenke, Barbara J. Bentz, Hans Juergen Boehmer, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Kauane Maiara Bordin, Francis Q. Brearley, Filippo Bussotti, Maxime Cailleret, J. Julio Camarero, Gherardo Chirici, Flavia R. C. Costa, Ricardo Dalagnol, Hendrik Davi, Stuart J. Davies, Sylvain Delzon, Bishnu Prasad Dhakal, Renato A. Ferreira de Lima, Marco Ferretti, Joseph B. Fontaine, Matteo Garbarino, André Luís de Gasper, Arthur Gessler, Gregory S. Gilbert, John L. Godlee, Francisco Maiato Pedro Gonçalves, Leen Govaere, Alvaro G. Gutiérrez, Ernesto Gómez Cardozo, William M. Hammond, Henrik Hartmann, Martina L. Hobi, Andrés Holz, Jürgen Homeier, Mark Joseph Hovenden, Cho-ying Huang, Bruno Hérault, Toby Jackson, Tommaso Jucker, Alistair S. Jump, Samuli Junttila, Teja Kattenborn, Joice Klipel, Martyna M. Kotowska, Kamil Král, Nicola La Porta, Leonel Lopez-Toledo, René López-Camacho, Eduardo Eiji Maeda, Jesús Mallol Díaz, Emanuel H. Martin, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Nate McDowell, Peter W. Moonlight, Akira S. Mori, Mohd Afzanizam Muda, Jan-Peter Mund, Robert Muscarella, Moisés Méndez-Toribio, Sandra C. Müller, Thomas A. Nagel, Stefan Neagu, Charles Andrew Nock, Moses Nsanyi Sainge, Michael J. O'Brien, Josep Peñuelas, George L. W. Perry, Oliver L. Phillips, Juan Manuel Posada, Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues, Anamaria Roman, Guillaume Xavier Rousseau, Nadine Katrin Ruehr, Paloma Ruiz-Benito, Katinka X. Ruthrof, Christian Salas-Eljatib, Tanja G. M. Sanders, Rodrigo Scarton Bergamin, Tobias Scharnweber, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Bernhard Schuldt, Selina Schwarz , Rupert Seidl, Ekaterina Shorohova, Ana Carolina Silva, Geert Sioen, Jarosław Socha, Krzysztof Stereńczak, Jonas Stillhard, Dejan B. Stojanović, Susanne Suvanto, Miroslav Svoboda, Martina Sánchez-Pinillos, Andrew J. Tanentzap, Anthony R. Taylor, Fabiano Turini Farah, Giorgio Vacchiano, Alexander C. Vibrans, Alberto Vilagrosa, Emilio Vilanova, Lars T. Waser, Susan K. Wiser, Kailiang Yu, Miguel A. Zavala, Laio Zimermann Oliveira, Daniel Zuleta, Alvaro Boson de Castro-Faria, Ernst van der Maaten, Marieke van der Maaten-Theunissen

Journal
New Phytologist: Volume 245, Issue 6

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