DSE postdoctoral researcher, Lucia Layritz, untangles impacts of climate change and disturbance on boreal forests in new study

By DSE July 29, 2025

Lucia Layritz, a postdoctoral researcher on our team, recently published a new paper in Biogeosciences that examines how climate change and increasing disturbances, like wildfires, are impacting the future of boreal forests. She completed this research as part of her dissertation at the School of Life Science, Technical University of Munich (TUM). 

 

The Copper River in Alaska, an example of a boreal forest ecosystem. Established conifer forest (dark green) is interspersed with pockets of younger, deciduous trees (orange), indicating recent fire scars. Credit: National Park Service
The Copper River in Alaska, an example of a boreal forest ecosystem. Established conifer forest (dark green) is interspersed with pockets of younger, deciduous trees (orange), indicating recent fire scars. Credit: National Park Service

 

Boreal forests span North America, Europe, and Asia, and are characterized by cold-tolerant coniferous forests. Lucia’s study explores how these forests, currently dominated by spruces and pines, are changing over time. This included examining vegetation changes such as species composition and carbon storage, as well as biophysical properties like albedo (how much sunlight the Earth’s surface reflects) and evapotranspiration (how much water evaporates from land and vegetation).

 

By using a dynamic vegetation model, Lucia ran simulations that allowed her and collaborators to isolate the effects of warming temperatures and other climatic changes from disturbances such as fire on boreal forests, and to study the interactions between both factors. The results were revealing:

  • Warming effects can lead to denser forests, as well as decreased albedo and increased evapotranspiration.
  • Disturbances by themselves reduce tree cover in favor of shrubs and grasses. Moreover, disturbances may have the opposite effect of warming, with increased reflectivity and decreased evaporation (which could potentially offset climate change impacts).
  • Together, warming temperatures and disturbances can lead to a reduction of coniferous trees, and a consequent expansion of deciduous varieties.

 

Figure depicting the factorial experiments allowed for disentangeling the total vegetation response into a climate response, a disturbance response and the effect of both driver coinciding
The factorial experiments allowed for disentangeling the total vegetation response into a climate response, a disturbance response and the effect of both driver coinciding.

 

For Lucia, the findings highlight a greater need to account for disturbance-induced effects on vegetation and the interactions between disturbances and climate change. Ultimately, she hopes this work serves as further motivation to integrate disturbances into vegetation and Earth system modeling, despite the many uncertainties.

 

“Early on in my dissertation, I realized how little we understand about future forest disturbances,” said Lucia. “Real-world observation doesn’t let us isolate the drivers of change, but modeling does. By disentangling climate change impacts from one another, we can get a clearer view of fundamental processes that are driving ecosystem changes in boreal forests.”