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© Brecht de Kezel

Forests are biodiversity hotspots and the large majority of forest plant species occurs below tree canopies. European forests are, however, now experiencing droughts unprecedented in at least 2000 years, leading to a major pulse of forest canopy opening and novel light regimes at the forest floor. These novel light regimes will strongly interact with direct drought effects on the understorey such that interactive, synergistic and indirect effects can be expected. Yet, no integrative study has assessed the large-scale interactive impacts of novel light regimes and drought on forest plant biodiversity. The time for this research is now.

CanopyChange is a project funded by the European Research Council aiming to quantify, understand and predict the impacts of novel light regimes and drought on below-canopy plant biodiversity across European forests (ERC Consolidator Grant 101124948).