Open Access

Miriam Aschauer

• The negative impact of climate change becomes noticeable almost everywhere on the planet. This work analyses the effects climate change has on the vegetation in the Bavarian part of the Spessart, which is a low mountain range with the largest coherent mixed deciduous and coniferous forest in Germany. Most of the area covers the northwestern part of Bavaria, a small part reaches into Hess. Naturally nearly all of the nature park would be covered with beech except some special sites. Because of different historical land uses, today the forest is not only made up of beech but also of a large amount of oak, spruce and pine. At the present, the rising temperatures do not only cause a lengthened vegetation period. Regarding to the tolerance towards a warmer climate and the very dry last few years, the trees are weakened and some died, mostly because they have been attacked by pests which benefit from the changes. Currently, this concerns especially spruce and pine, both trees that would notThe negative impact of climate change becomes noticeable almost everywhere on the planet. This work analyses the effects climate change has on the vegetation in the Bavarian part of the Spessart, which is a low mountain range with the largest coherent mixed deciduous and coniferous forest in Germany. Most of the area covers the northwestern part of Bavaria, a small part reaches into Hess. Naturally nearly all of the nature park would be covered with beech except some special sites. Because of different historical land uses, today the forest is not only made up of beech but also of a large amount of oak, spruce and pine. At the present, the rising temperatures do not only cause a lengthened vegetation period. Regarding to the tolerance towards a warmer climate and the very dry last few years, the trees are weakened and some died, mostly because they have been attacked by pests which benefit from the changes. Currently, this concerns especially spruce and pine, both trees that would not be found in the natural vegetation of the Spessart. Nobody knows exactly, what the climate of the future will look like. While forestry often expects a temperature increase of 2°C until 2100, many of the climate projections show a warming of over 3°C. Statements about the future development of precipitation are very unreliable, but important for the plants. Even a warming of 2°C will have a strong impact on the vegetation of the Spessart. An important issue to tackle now is the question of which trees to plant in this commercial forest. Apart from a stronger focus on oaks and rare indigenous species, trees from warmer regions are currently very attractive to plant. Needless to say, the climate change will also have an impact on the indigenous biodiversity, how much depends on the strength of warming. Neophytes belong to the winners of climate change, while moist special sites have a particular risk. At the same time those locations have a great importance for the indigenous biodiversity. If the temperature exceeds 3°C until 2100 nobody knows which trees can grow in this future scenario. Furthermore many processes and interactions are not understood so far. The pace of climate change makes it very important to encourage research.…