The Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances: DEFID2.

Insect and disease outbreaks in forests are biotic disturbances that can profoundly alter ecosystem dynamics. In many parts of the world, these disturbance regimes are intensifying as the climate changes and shifts the distribution of species and biomes. As a result, key forest ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, regulation of water flows, wood production, protection of soils, and the conservation of biodiversity, could be increasingly compromised. Despite the relevance of these detrimental effects, there are currently no spatially detailed databases that record insect and disease disturbances on forests at the pan-European scale. Here, we present the new Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances (DEFID2). It comprises over 650,000 harmonized georeferenced records, mapped as polygons or points, of insects and disease disturbances that occurred between 1963 and 2021 in European forests. The records currently span eight different countries and were acquired through diverse methods (e.g., ground surveys, remote sensing techniques). The records in DEFID2 are described by a set of qualitative attributes, including severity and patterns of damage symptoms, agents, host tree species, climate-driven trigger factors, silvicultural practices, and eventual sanitary interventions. They are further complemented with a satellite-based quantitative characterization of the affected forest areas based on Landsat Normalized Burn Ratio time series, and damage metrics derived from them using the LandTrendr spectral-temporal segmentation algorithm (including onset, duration, magnitude, and rate of the disturbance), and possible interactions with windthrow and wildfire events. The DEFID2 database is a novel resource for many large-scale applications dealing with biotic disturbances. It offers a unique contribution to design networks of experiments, improve our understanding of ecological processes underlying biotic forest disturbances, monitor their dynamics, and enhance their representation in land-climate models. Further data sharing is encouraged to extend and improve the DEFID2 database continuously. The database is freely available at https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/FOREST/DISTURBANCES/DEFID2/.

EU-Trees4F, a dataset on the future distribution of European tree species.

We present "EU-Trees4F", a dataset of current and future potential distributions of 67 tree species in Europe at 10 km spatial resolution. We provide both climatically suitable future areas of occupancy and the future distribution expected under a scenario of natural dispersal for two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) and three time steps (2035, 2065, and 2095). Also, we provide a version of the dataset where tree ranges are limited by future land use. These data-driven projections were made using an ensemble species distribution model calibrated using EU-Forest, a comprehensive dataset of tree species occurrences for Europe, and driven by seven bioclimatic parameters derived from EURO-CORDEX regional climate model simulations, and two soil parameters. "EU-Trees4F", can benefit various research fields, including forestry, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and bio-economy. Possible applications include the calibration or benchmarking of dynamic vegetation models, or informing forest adaptation strategies based on assisted tree migration. Given the multiple European policy initiatives related to forests, this dataset represents a timely and valuable resource to support policymaking.

Chorological maps for the main European woody species.

A novel chorological data compilation for the main European tree and shrub species is presented. This dataset was produced by combining numerous and heterogeneous data collected from 20th century atlas monographs providing complete species distribution maps, and from more recent national to regional atlases, occurrence geodatabases and scientific literature. The dataset is composed of numerous species distribution maps available in geographical information system (GIS) format, created by compiling, evaluating and synthesizing data of all collected sources. The geometry of the individual datasets describes contiguous large areas of occupancy of each species as polygons and fragmented or isolated occurrences as points. Since this geodatabase is intended to provide a synthetic continental-scale overview of the species ranges, the maps represent the species' general chorology and the presence/absence information should not be considered absolute in terms of geolocation. Errors and imprecisions arising from the interpretation and digitalization processes are likely to occur, especially in those areas where detailed information is scarce. As new information sources become available, these will be used to address current data gaps, implement corrections and updates of the chorology dataset as well as expanding it to comprise additional species.