Work package 2

To further our mechanistic understanding of the separate independent, interactive, and cumulative effects, and tipping points, of drought × canopy disturbance, we will set up a pan-continental forest drought-disturbance experiment. At a subset of 50 of the WP1-plots (5 regions with 10 plots), stratified along a gradient of canopy disturbance (within regions) and past droughts (across regions), we will install rainout shelters (transparent gutters) to experimentally simulate further extreme drought. In subsequent years, we will then be able to accurately quantify the effects of experimentally induced drought on the vegetation trajectory of change at different levels of biological organisation in control vs drought plots. Such an experiment allows us to uniquely unravel the interactions of drought with canopy disturbance across European temperate forests.