Pieter Zuidema

Published!📖

Forest structural and functional diversity can attenuate forest productivity losses after harvesting and fires. In undisturbed forests, dominance boosts productivity via selection effects, but not after harvesting🌳🌲🌍

Read here:https://buff.ly/Gw5Hq6X

Global dependency of canopy height on vapour pressure deficit and its projections under climate change - Nature Ecology & Evolution Rising atmospheric aridity may be an important driver of tree growth. Here the authors present analyse the global relationship between tree canopy height and vapour pressure deficit, and its potential...

Global analysis shows that atmospheric dryness explains geographical patterns of tree canopy height and is projected to become more important in the coming decades:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌍📢 Postdoc alert | 3-yr starting early 2026

Please 🔁!

Understand how ecosystem stability is changing across space and through time using niche modelling, pinpoint at-risk species/regions, and build tools that drive conservation action🌿🧭📈

👉 tinyurl.com/2mafwru3

#Ecology #Jobs #Biodiversity

We're currently looking for new Associate Editors to join our Editorial Board! 🌎🧪

If you're interested in contributing to the publishing landscape, check out the link below 👇
www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/appl...

Increased efficiency of water use does not stimulate tree productivity - Nature Climate Change The authors theoretically delineate the maximal increases in tree growth that can be expected from increases in plant intrinsic water-use efficiency, which increases with rising CO2. They highlight en...

Extra CO2 stimulates #photosynthesis of trees and reduces water losses through transpiration. But does that stimulate growth of #tree stems? Our paper today in NatClimateChange led by Quan Zhang uses theory & data to show that strong growth stimulation is unlikely.🌎🌐🍁
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are hiring: 4 PhD Positions in Ecology / Data Science and one Ecological Data Scientist We are looking for 4 PhD Positions and one Scientific Programmer / Ecological Data Scientist to join the AG Hartig (Theoretical Ecology)

We are hiring: 4 PhD Positions in Ecology / Data Science and one Ecological Data Scientist. For more information, see www.uni-regensburg.de/universitaet...

🚨Calling all #TreeRing lovers!🚨

Join us at #EGU26 for session CL1.2.1 Interdisciplinary Tree-Ring Research

Abstracts exploring tree rings from all perspectives and disciplines are welcome!

Submit here:
tinyurl.com/475xjjfu

K. Treydte, J. Jevšenak, A. Eckes-Shephard, @pieterzuidema.bsky.social

Please pass along, I’m recruiting PhD students to join our Macroecology Lab @uofa-eeb.bsky.social We study phys ecology, macroecology, biodiversity - spanning scaling, trait-based ecology, theory, comparative biology & ecoinformatics. Several avenues for funding. Please reach out if interested🧪🌐🌾

Simulated and observed annual mature forest turnover time and woody biomass increment flux at a boreal, temperate and tropical site.

#Demography, dynamics and data: building confidence for simulating changes in the world's forests

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
by Eckes-Shephard et al.

@WIleyPlantSci #PlantScience

🎉Congratulations 🎓 Dr Sophie Zwartsenberg who defended her PhD thesis @w-u-r.bsky.social about climate & CO2 effects on trees in #tropicalforest

Sophie found that 100y of CO2 rise stimulated tree #photosynthesis, that #treerings are narower during hot & dry years, and more so in drier regions. 🌎🍁

According to this paper, there could be c. 55.5 million tall trees (> 60 m height) across the Brazilian Amazon, with the highest density in the northeast portion. These trees have a disproportionate contribution to the carbon stored in these forests! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🪵 Diameter drives short-term biomass gains, but long-term carbon storage hinges on wood density, especially in humid forests. To improve accuracy, biomass models should account for radial wood density variation and climate ☁️

🔎 Find out more: buff.ly/kZFoh9B

Combined genetic and chemical methods boost the precision of tracing illegal timber in Central Africa - Communications Earth & Environment The origin of timber was correctly identified for 94% of samples in Central Africa, a high-risk region with low tracing accuracy to date, according to an analysis that combined genetic, stable isotope...

New #timber #tracing paper on power of combined methods.
Study led by @lauraboeschoten.bsky.social & Barbara RV Meyer-Sand for African timber shows combining methods boosts reliability of tracing. With 3 methods: 95% of samples traced back to <100 km of origin. 🌎🌐🍁
👉 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Combined genetic and chemical methods boost the precision of tracing illegal timber in Central Africa - Communications Earth & Environment The origin of timber was correctly identified for 94% of samples in Central Africa, a high-risk region with low tracing accuracy to date, according to an analysis that combined genetic, stable isotope...

🪵Combined methods boost the precision of tracing illegal timber
The origin of timber was correctly identified for 94% of samples in Central Africa, a high-risk region with low tracing accuracy to date.
@lauraboeschoten.bsky.social @pieterzuidema.bsky.social
👉Read here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Long‐Term Cambial Phenology Reveals Diverging Growth Responses of Two Tree Species in a Mixed Forest Under Climate Change We studied how climate change affects tree growth by monitoring wood formation in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Pyrenean oak (Quercus pyrenaica) over 11 years. We found that warmer winters lead t...

Climate change is reshaping forest growth 🌳🌡️💧
Water and temperature control growth timing.
Warmer winters make some species start growing earlier.
Hot, dry summers may shorten growing seasons.

New paper out @globalchangebio.bsky.social led by a former PhD student @csic.es shorturl.at/5Gn8a

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1917

A must-read special issue: “Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace’s legacy”
royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...
I: Determinants of diversity & resilience.
II: Measuring the state of biodiversity
III: Biodiversity & natural capital
IV: Future scenarios for nature

Shifts in vegetation activity of terrestrial ecosystems attributable to climate trends - Nature Geoscience An analysis fusing satellite data with a process-based model of plant growth attributes changes in vegetation activity across terrestrial ecosystems to climatic changes.

Attribution of vegetation change to climate change: here we compared vegetation time series to simulations from a process model forced with observed and counterfactual (detrended) climate data. Trends in climate necessary for the model to emulate vegetation trends www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3

Yesterday, Bo Zhou successfully defended his PhD thesis at @w-u-r.bsky.social on carbon & water dynamics in a montane forest in subtropical China. Bo studied tree growth rythms & transpiration fluxes.
🎉Congrats 🎓 Dr Bo!
▶️ Defense: wur.yuja.com/V/Watch?v=93...
📙Thesis: research.wur.nl/en/publicati...

Plant species–habitat networks in a mosaic landscape of restored and fragmented tropical forests 🌲🌏

Highlights the role of species interactions and their correlated traits such as dispersal syndromes in promoting landscape-scale connectivity 📊🧪

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Good news for a change: Background mortality in unmanaged forests of Europe has not increased over past decades. Great work from the European Forest Reserve Initiative EuFoRIa, out in @journalofecology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/1365...

🌱 Study in the tropical–subtropical zone shows slope and species diversity shape carbon sequestration!
Leaf nutrients + soil N and P = key drivers of soil organic carbon.
Random Forest and SEM offer restoration insights.
🔗https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11676-025-01895-y
🧪🌏🌐🍁🌺🌱🌿🦤

FINAL VERSION PUBLISHED @forestecosyst.bsky.social
📰Tree competition in West African tropical forests mediated by the functional attributes of species and variation in soil moisture www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Biomass production of tropical trees across space and time: The shifting roles of diameter growth and wood density Diameter growth is an important and good indicator of forest carbon production. However, size-related changes in wood density, which are usually neglected, are critical for accurate short- and long-t...

#Tree stems accumulate biomass by adding volume of certain density. Which factor is more important?

Using tropical #treering data we found: diameter increment explains biomass growth at short term; wood density at long term.🌎🌐🍁
#dendrochronology
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

⛰️🌳New study examines wood density variation across an elevational gradient from the Andean tree line to the Amazon basin, finding a decline from low to middle elevations, followed by an increase near the tree line. Species composition and disturbances influenced this pattern. 👉 buff.ly/ujConkt

Impact of emerging compound droughts on forests: A water supply and demand perspective This review examines the physiological and ecological responses of trees to emerging compound droughts from a water demand and supply perspective, as well as the role of acclimation and consequences ...

🌳🔥Out now: Our review on compound droughts and forest responses - from leaf to ecosystem. Featuring a stunning 20-yr map of canopy temperatures variation across European forests. @chriswernerlab.bsky.social @simonhaber.bsky.social @vallicrosah.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Amazonian and Andean tree communities are not tracking current climate warming | PNAS Climate change is shifting species distributions, leading to changes in community composition and novel species assemblages worldwide. However, the...

A big congratulations to William Farhan-Rios on this paper in @pnas.org, featuring a study of tropical-forest change over four decades along the Amazon-to-Andes elevational gradient in Bolivia and Peru 🌴 ⛰️ 🌐

@mobotgarden.bsky.social @livingearthcollab.bsky.social

1/3

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Parameterization of the 3-PG model for Quercus mongolica by using tree-ring data and Bayesian calibration - Journal of Forestry Research Although Quercus mongolica is a widely distributed, economically and ecologically important deciduous tree in northern China, models to accurately predict stand growth at a regional scale are limited....

🌳 Forests of the future are growing fast!
By 2100, Quercus mongolica stands could see +145% volume and +80% productivity under RCP8.5.
3-PG + Bayesian calibration = sharper growth predictions.

👉 Explore the findings: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#Forestry #ClimateChange #TreeGrowth
🌏🌐🍁🌺🌱🌿🦤

A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees - Nature Microbiome analyses of living trees show that a single tree can host approximately one trillion bacteria, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood and with minim...

#NatMicroPicks

Hidden microbial world in trees🌳

Living wood hosts trillions of bacteria making trees a complex ecosystems with major roles in forest health and function.

#PlantMicro #MicroSky

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Few weeks left to apply for a fully funded PhD studentship in my lab @rhulbiology.bsky.social as part of new EU project Trees4Adapt
🌲🌳 Fieldwork in forest diversity experiments in Finland www.sataforestdiversity.org
📆 Apply by Sept 8th, start date - Jan 2026
👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🍁🌍🧪