Forests and Cold Temperatures: Understanding and Managing Freezing Stress under Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

Due to their lasting effects and repeated occurrence, freezing temperatures are detrimental to regeneration, tree growth, and forest sustainability. Climate change may increase weather variability and the occurrence of false spring, when unseasonal warm days are followed by seasonal cold days, thereby increasing the risk of frost damage. Understanding changes in cold hardiness in relation to spring warming will help with developing models predicting possible frost damage based on the timing of freezing temperatures. Since resistance to frost varies among species and populations due to different phenology and cold hardiness, assisted migration could help minimize the risk of frost damage while maximizing forest growth and productivity. However, much about frost resistance and changes in frost frequency and severity under climate change remains unclear, which limits the use of tree physiology (cold hardiness) and phenology in assisted migration decisions and the development of silvicultural systems to reduce damage. This Special Issue will be transdisciplinary and is intended to bridge tree physiology, forestry, and climatology studies using field observations, experiments, modelling and remote sensing for understanding and managing freezing stress under climate change across temperate and boreal forest ecosystems.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Short- and long-term impacts on seedlings and trees;
• Mechanisms of frost resistance;
• Seasonal change in the cold hardiness of various tissues;
• Identification of species and seed sources for assisted migration;
• Spatio-temporal change in frost frequency with climate warming;
• Silvicultural options to mitigate frost damage.

Dr. Rongzhou Man
Dr. Benjamin Marquis
Dr. Qianqian Ma
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• spring frost
• dehardening
• cold hardiness
• climate change
• forest regeneration
• assistant migration
• silviculture
• freezing damage