Ecology, Forestry, Environmental Science, Computers in Earth Sciences
90
Scopus Publications
6431
Scholar Citations
38
Scholar h-index
69
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Characterizing near-surface temperature dynamics in mountain ecosystems using Landsat Katja Kowalski, Louis Tenbergen, Felix Wieland-Glasmann, Cornelius Senf Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2026 Mountain ecosystems feature diverse microclimates due to their environmental complexity, thus providing habitats for a large variety of species and delivering essential ecosystem services. Remote sensing is becoming a key technology for monitoring the spatiotemporal dynamics of microclimates. Satellite data from Landsat’s thermal and optical bands offer repeated and spatially continuous observations of top-of-canopy temperature and vegetation vitality, respectively. Yet, the potential of Landsat for mapping microclimates (here mid-day near-surface-temperatures) has rarely been investigated. We here provide a proof-of-concept for using Landsat time series to characterize near-surface temperature dynamics across a mountain landscape in the European Alps. Combining in-situ near-surface-temperature measurements from 213 plots with Landsat time series, we found that near-surface temperatures were tightly coupled to top-of-canopy temperatures from Landsat. While vegetation cover showed a positive effect on near-surface temperature buffering in forests, we observed an inverse effect for open lands. We explain this finding by reduced wind speeds and concurrent high incoming solar radiation in increasingly dense, but low vegetation layers leading to amplified near-surface temperatures. Using the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) revealed consistent effects, demonstrating that a simple vegetation index derived from Landsat can substitute vegetation cover derived from airborne laser scanning, which has been used widely for mapping forest structure. Our study emphasizes the value of satellite remote sensing for mapping spatially and temporally dynamic microclimates across heterogenous ecosystems.
Unravelling the spatial and temporal variability of natural disturbances in European forests Sofia Miguel, Emily Lines, Mihai Tanase, Alba Viana‐Soto, Cornelius Senf, Paloma Ruiz‐Benito Journal of Applied Ecology, 2026 Despite disturbances intensifying across European forests, it is not well known how their baseline regimes and trends vary across regions and disturbance agents. Using a Landsat‐derived dataset of over 3.8 million fire, wind and bark beetle disturbance events (1985–2023), we applied Gaussian finite mixture models to characterise natural disturbance regimes by causal agent, based on disturbance size, severity and frequency. We then analysed their variability across 50‐km grid cells and biomes (boreal, temperate, Mediterranean), as well as their long‐term trends and transitions across three periods (1985–1997, 1998–2010, 2011–2023). Fire regimes exhibited a marked north–south latitudinal gradient: severe and rare fires occurred in boreal and temperate biomes, whereas moderate and large and frequent fires predominated in Mediterranean and temperate–Mediterranean transitional forests. For wind and bark beetle disturbances, we identified four distinct regimes: moderate disturbances predominated in boreal and temperate biomes; mild and rare disturbances occurred in Mediterranean and temperate–Mediterranean forests; and frequent and small , as well as severe and large disturbances predominated in Central Europe and the British Isles, respectively. Approximately 15% of all grid cells shifted to a different disturbance regime during the study period. Fire frequency and severity declined in temperate and Mediterranean forests between the first and second period (1985–1997 and 1998–2010). Wind and bark beetle disturbances decreased in size in boreal and temperate forests during the same period, followed by increases in disturbance severity in temperate forests between the second and third period (1998–2010 and 2011–2023). Synthesis and applications: The heterogeneity of natural disturbance patterns and high temporal variability across European Forest suggest the need of adopting context‐dependent management strategies tailored to both the dominant disturbance agent and local environmental conditions, particularly in the most vulnerable regions, such as the Iberian Peninsula—with large and frequent fires—and Central Europe—with increasing bark beetle outbreaks. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the journal’s blog .
Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century Marc Grünig, Werner Rammer, Cornelius Senf, Katharina Albrich, Frédéric André, Andrey L. D. Augustynczik, Martin Baumann, Friedrich J. Bohn, Meike Bouwman, Harald Bugmann, Alessio Collalti, Irina Cristal, Daniela Dalmonech, Francois De Coligny, Laura Dobor, Christina Dollinger, Josep Maria Espelta, David I. Forrester, Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo, José Ramón González-Olabarria, Ulrike Hiltner, Tomáš Hlásny, Juha Honkaniemi, Nica Huber, Mathieu Jonard, Anna Maria Jönsson, Georges Kunstler, Fredrik Lagergren, Marcus Lindner, Marco Mina, Christine Moos, Xavier Morin, Bart Muys, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Mats Nieberg, Marco Patacca, Mikko Peltoniemi, Christopher P. O. Reyer, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Ilié Storms, Dominik Thom, Maude Toïgo, Rupert Seidl Science, 2026 Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter resolution across Europe using a deep learning–based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed areas more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe’s forest demography. Because of their profound implications for forest carbon storage and the habitat value of forest ecosystems, disturbances should be a priority of forest policy and management.
The role of thermal constraints in post-disturbance forest recovery across the European Alps – a large-scale remote sensing study Lisa Mandl, Ana Stritih, Rupert Seidl, Cornelius Senf Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2026 • Forest recovery mapped from Landsat-Sentinel-2 data across the European Alps. • High recovery success across Alps but also high spatial variability. • Warming increases recovery success, but effects vary depending on location. • Additional important drivers of recovery success identified. Forest ecosystems in the European Alps are increasingly affected by climate change, with rising temperatures and more frequent climate extremes altering disturbance regimes and shaping post-disturbance recovery. While climate change is expected to constrain recovery in lowlands due to increasing thermal stress, high-elevation ecosystems were historically limited by temperature, with the net effects of warming on post-disturbance recovery remaining uncertain. Using multi-decadal Earth observation data from Landsat and Sentinel-2 (1986–2023), we quantified post-disturbance canopy recovery and assessed the influence of thermal constraints on recovery. Recovery success, defined as the proportion of disturbed forest reaching 80 % of pre-disturbance tree cover within ten years, indicated that 48 % of disturbances recovered according to this metric. Beyond this general pattern, recovery varied systematically with climate and disturbance characteristics. Recovery success peaked at intermediate summer temperatures and declined with increasing disturbance severity, higher pre-disturbance tree cover, and larger post-disturbance bare-ground share. Precipitation exerted only a minor influence. We found strong evidence that warmer-than-average summers, measured as summer temperature anomalies, improved recovery across the Alps, except for localized responses in the south-western region. Our findings suggest that warming relaxes the thermal limitations for tree growth in large parts of the Alps, with warmer summers providing additional thermal energy and longer snow-free periods favouring canopy regrowth. Notably, the south-western Alps deviated from this pattern, showing a negative relationship between summer temperature anomalies and recovery, with warming increasingly threatening recovery. By providing large-scale empirical evidence on how post-disturbance recovery varies across the Alps, this study improves the understanding of interactions between climate change and forest recovery.
Forest Reburns Are Integral to Southern Europe's Disturbance Regimes Alba Viana‐Soto, Cornelius Senf Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2026 Aim Fire disturbances are integral to fire‐prone landscapes of southern Europe. While evidence of changing fire frequency has been documented, the dynamics of forest reburns—defined as previously burned areas that ignite again within intervals shorter than the historical range with which forests ecologically evolved—remain largely unexplored. Here, we aim to provide the first large‐scale characterisation of reburns in southern Europe. Location Europe. Time Period 1985–2023. Methods Using a novel remote sensing dataset on fire disturbances, we identified areas burning multiple times by aggregating the annual information on fire disturbances. We calculated the proportion of forest area affected by fire (burn fraction) and the proportion that reburned (reburn fraction) across space and time to characterise the spatiotemporal patterns of reburn occurrence. Results We quantified the spatial extent and frequency of reburns, revealing that 30.1% of burned area in southern Europe experienced multiple fire events within the 1985–2023 period (4.24 Mha), with 84.5% of these reburns occurring within a 20‐year interval, and thus approaching the lower limit of reproductive maturity for many tree species. Reburn hotspots emerged across the Mediterranean, where 19%–21.1% year −1 of all fires were reburns within 20 years, and in the temperate forests of western Europe, where reburns accounted for 40.8% year −1 . We further show that, although the overall burned area decreased, reburns continued to account for a substantial share of annual burn activity since 2005, with even slight increases in eastern regions. Main Conclusions Our results highlight that reburns are integral to southern Europe's disturbance regimes, and we emphasise the critical role of long time series for understanding forest dynamics. Based on our results, we suggest that reburns may increasingly shape fire regimes in southern Europe under intensifying forest fire activity, which may undermine post‐fire recovery and require special consideration from management.
The impact of extreme disturbance events on the economic attractiveness of stand types: A Monte Carlo simulation-based study Reyhaneh Farahani, Jonathan Fibich, Johannes Mohr, Cornelius Senf, Thomas Knoke Forest Policy and Economics, 2026 Climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme disturbance events pose major challenges for sustainable forest management. Quantifying the economic impacts of such events is essential for developing adaptive strategies. We present a comparative stand-level assessment framework that evaluates land expectation value (LEV) and conditional value at risk (CVaR, the average of the worst 5% of LEV outcomes) by explicitly integrating rare disturbance events into forest economic simulations. Probabilities for extreme disturbances were estimated using Taylor's law, which links the mean and variance of disturbance rates, and were combined with Monte Carlo simulations for four major Central European tree species and a mixed stand under different climate scenarios. Our analysis distinguishes between background mortality (hazards predicted by established statistical survival models) and extreme disturbances (low-probability, high-impact events), providing a comprehensive economic assessment. Results show that including extreme disturbances substantially reduces LEV and worsens CVaR, with large variation across stand types. Norway spruce is most affected, with additional LEV losses above €3000 ha −1 and CVaR declines up to €7000 ha −1 . Douglas fir maintains high mean returns but faces considerable downside risk (CVaR declines up to €3600 ha −1 ). Silver fir and mixed stand experience moderate impacts, while European beech performs worst, with consistently low or negative returns. By integrating disturbance probabilities into forest economics, this study quantifies both expected and worst-case outcomes. The findings suggest that while Douglas fir remains profitable on average, silver fir and mixed stand tend to provide a more balanced performance under future disturbance regimes, although broader conclusions require landscape-level analysis.
Long-term comparison shows protected and non-protected forests differ in harvesting, but not in wildfires or drought-driven dieback Josep Maria Espelta, Alba Viana‐Soto, Roberto Molowny‐Horas, Miquel de Caceres, Miriam Selwyn, Mireia Banqué, Lluís Brotons, Francisco Lloret, Jordi Martínez‐Vilalta, Miriam Piqué, Cornelius Senf Journal of Applied Ecology, 2026 While disturbances are essential for biodiversity, their escalation driven by climate change may threaten forest ecosystems. Contrasting approaches to adapt forests to disturbances—intensifying management versus encouraging natural succession towards more mature ecosystems—have sparked a debate about whether protection influences forests' vulnerability to disturbance. This question, however, has barely been investigated. Natura 2000 network is the backbone of biodiversity protection in Europe. We compared the long‐term incidence of harvesting, wildfires and drought‐driven forest dieback inside and outside Natura 2000 areas in Catalonia (NE Spain) by combining remote sensing‐derived maps of harvesting and wildfires (1985–2023), an exhaustive ground survey on forest dieback (2012–2023) and forest characteristics extracted from 3400 permanent plots inventoried in 1990, 2000 and 2015. From 1985 to 2023, remote sensing‐identified wildfires and harvesting affected 20% of the total forest area, with 60% attributed to harvesting and 40% to wildfires, highlighting the strong influence of wildfires on Mediterranean landscapes. From 2012 to 2023, the forest area affected by drought‐driven dieback (11%) matched the sum of the area of wildfires and harvesting for the same period or that of wildfires for 40 years, which suggests an increasing impact of drought‐driven dieback. Harvesting occurrence and intensity were significantly higher outside Natura 2000 sites, whereas protection did not influence wildfires or dieback, triggered by environmental and forest characteristics, that is, bioclimatic region, topography or leaf habit. Ultimately, a higher harvesting intensity did not prevent forests from experiencing drought‐driven dieback later. Synthesis and applications . Lower forest harvesting in Natura 2000 sites may align with socio‐economic barriers often claimed by local communities, but protection does not influence vulnerability to other disturbances. In a general scenario of reduced forest harvesting in the region, we argue that differences in harvesting due to protection are statistically significant but ecologically irrelevant in influencing wildfires or drought‐driven dieback. Moreover, beyond protection status, the lack of effects of the current harvesting intensities in halting drought‐driven dieback suggests they may be insufficient for supporting forests' adaptation to climate change. Additionally, other measures (e.g. promoting more drought‐tolerant tree species and genotypes) should also be considered.
Tree Regeneration After Unprecedented Forest Disturbances in Central Europe Is Robust but Maladapted to Future Climate Change Mária Potterf, Christian Schattenberg, Kirsten Krüger, Kilian Hochholzer, Werner Rammer, Marc Grünig, Kristin H. Braziunas, Christina Dollinger, Aikio Erhardt, Jean‐Claude Gégout, Lisa Geres, Sina Greiner, Tomáš Hlásny, Anne Huber, Jonas Kerber, Judit Lecina‐Diaz, Lisa Mandl, Roman Modlinger, Johannes S. Mohr, Jörg Müller, Miguel Muñoz Mazón, Paulina E. Pinto, Tobias Richter, Sebastian Seibold, Cornelius Senf, Josep M. Serra‐Diaz, Ana Stritih, Dominik Thom, Alba Viana‐Soto, Jiayun Zou, Rupert Seidl Global Change Biology, 2026 Central Europe has been a hotspot of forest disturbance during 2018–2020, with large pulses of tree mortality from drought and bark beetles. Post‐disturbance recovery is crucial for forest resilience and the continued provision of ecosystem services. We surveyed 849 plots in disturbance hotspots across 10 Central European countries to assess the state of early (3–5 years) post‐disturbance tree regeneration. Our specific objectives were to quantify post‐disturbance tree recovery, identify key drivers, and assess future trajectories using model‐based analyses. We found robust tree recovery throughout Central Europe, with median stem densities of 4750 n ha −1 . Only 7% of plots had no regeneration. Regeneration density increased with precipitation, particularly at warm sites, and decreased with disturbance severity and size. The most frequently regenerating tree species was Picea abies (present on 48% of plots), a species that is poorly adapted to future heat and drought. Overall, we found that 75% of the currently established trees are projected to be outside of their climatic niche by the end of the century under moderate climate change (RCP4.5). We conclude that while Central European forests recover well from recent disturbances, they lack sufficient post‐disturbance reorganization to enable sufficient adaptation to future climate.
Benchmarking tree instance segmentation of terrestrial laser scanning point clouds Wout Cherlet, Karun Dayal, Shilin Chen, Zane Cooper, Mathias Disney, Andreas Hanzl, Shaun Levick, Joanne Nightingale, Niall Origo, Cornelius Senf, Luna Soenens, Louise Terryn, Wouter A.J. Van den Broeck, Kim Calders ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 2026 Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has revolutionized forest measurement techniques by providing detailed three-dimensional (3D) point cloud data that captures the structure of forests and individual trees. Instance segmentation of point clouds, i.e. separating the forest into individual tree point clouds, remains a key challenge in automated processing due to complex, diverse tree structure and interactions. Furthermore, comparing segmentation performance is difficult, as new methods are often tested on new data with varying evaluation practices. Establishing a standardized benchmark and evaluation pipeline is key to consistent comparison and development of new algorithms and models. To this end, we manually segmented point clouds of four different forest types into almost 3000 individual trees spanning over 2.7 ha. We then evaluated five open-source segmentation methods, three theory-driven and two deep learning-based, using an evaluation pipeline with both plot and tree-scale metrics, independent of downstream application. Our results showed that a graph-based approach currently outperforms data-driven models for metrics such as plot-level F1-score and tree-level mean F1 score. Segmentation performance varied greatly across forest types, underscoring that instance segmentation remains difficult to automate and highlighting the need for diverse training and evaluation data. The benchmark dataset and evaluation code are publicly available to facilitate development and evaluation of generalized automated segmentation methods.
Taylor’s law predicts unprecedented pulses of forest disturbance under global change Cornelius Senf, Rupert Seidl, Thomas Knoke, Tommaso Jucker Nature Communications, 2025 Climate extremes are causing increasingly large pulses of forest disturbance across biomes, raising concerns that forests are pushed beyond their safe operating space. However, predicting future disturbance pulses remains a major challenge, as these events are stochastic and driven by complex ecological and socio-economic processes. Here, we provide a tractable solution to this problem using Taylor’s law, which predicts changes in variability (and thus the frequency of extremes) from changes in the mean. We empirically test the hypothesis that forest disturbance dynamics can be described through Taylor’s law using high-resolution annual disturbance maps of Europe’s forests going back 35 years. We find strong evidence for a power law relationship between mean disturbance rates and their temporal variability, indicating that increasing mean disturbance rates – as observed for Europe and many other parts of the globe – significantly amplify the probability of large disturbance pulses. The power law relationship was consistent across natural disturbance agents, spatial grains, and biomes, and applied also to human-driven disturbances. Our findings challenge the assumption that extreme disturbance pulses are inherently unpredictable, providing a data-driven framework for their integration into forest policy and management.
The amount of undisturbed forest in proximity of severe disturbance patches enhances their recovery in temperate Europe Lisa Mandl, Matteo Cerioni, Radek Bače, Andrej Bončina, Josef Brůna, Ewa Chećko, Johannes H. C. de Koning, Jurij Diaci, Dorota Dobrowolska, Gal Fidej, Matteo Garbarino, Āris Jansons, Srdjan Keren, Māra Kitenberga, Matija Klopčič, Bohdan Konôpka, Martin Kopecký, Kajar Köster, Stanislav Kucbel, Emanuele Lingua, Martin Macek, Raffaella Marzano, Marek Metslaid, Momchil Panayotov, Ján Pittner, Vladimír Šebeň, Jarosław Socha, Miroslav Svoboda, Jerzy Szwagrzyk, Nickolay Tsvetanov, Carlo Urbinati, Jaroslav Vencurik, Alessandro Vitali, Floortje Vodde, Jan Wild, Thomas A. Nagel, Cornelius Senf Landscape Ecology, 2025
Realistic virtual forests for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space Kim Calders, Martin Herold, Jennifer Adams, John Armston, Benjamin Brede, Wout Cherlet, Zane T. Cooper, Karun Dayal, Pieter De Frenne, Shaun R. Levick, Patrick Meir, Niall Origo, Cornelius Senf, Luna Soenens, Louise Terryn, Wouter A.J. Van den Broeck, Mikko Vastaranta, Hans Verbeeck, Ludovic Villard, Mathias Disney ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 2025
Towards a global understanding of tree mortality Cornelius Adriane Thomas A. M. William R. L. Kristina J. Gab Senf Esquivel‐Muelbert Pugh Anderegg Anderson‐Teix, Cornelius Senf, Adriane Esquível-Muelbert, Thomas A. M. Pugh, W. Anderegg, K. Anderson‐Teixeira, Gabriel Arellano, Mirela Beloiu Schwenke, Barbara J. Bentz, Hans Juergen Boehmer, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, K. Bordin, F. Brearley, Filippo Bussotti, Maxime Cailleret, J. Camarero, G. Chirici, Flavia R. C. Costa, Ricardo Dalagnol, Hendrik Davi, Stuart J. Davies, Sylvain Delzon, Bishnu Prasad Dhakal, Renato A. Ferreira de Lima, Marco Ferretti, Joseph B. Fontaine, Matteo Garbarino, A. L. de Gasper, Arthur Gessler, Gregory S. Gilbert, J. L. Godlee, Francisco Maiato Pedro Gonçalves, Leen Govaere, Alvaro G. Gutiérrez, Ernesto Gómez Cardozo, William M. Hammond, Henrik Hartmann, M. Hobi, Andrés Holz, J. Homeier, M. Hovenden, Cho‐ying Huang, Bruno Hérault, Toby Jackson, T. Jucker, A. Jump, S. Junttila, T. Kattenborn, Joice Klipel, M. Kotowska, Kamil Král, Nicola La Porta, Leonel López-Toledo, René López‐Camacho, Eduardo Eiji Maeda, Jesús Mallol Díaz, Emanuel H. Martin, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Nate G. McDowell, P. Moonlight, Akira S. Mori, Mohd Afzanizam Muda, J. Mund, Robert Muscarella, Moisés Méndez‐Toribio, Sandra C. Müller, T. Nagel, Stefan Neagu, C. Nock, Moses Nsanyi Sainge, Michael J. O'Brien, Josep Peñuelas, George L. W. Perry, Oliver L. Phillips, Juan Manuel Posada, Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues, Anamaria Roman, G. Rousseau, N. Ruehr, P. Ruiz‐Benito, K. Ruthrof, Christian Salas‐Eljatib, Tajna Sanders, Rodrigo Scarton Bergamin, T. Scharnweber, M. Schelhaas, B. Schuldt, Selina Schwarz, R. Seidl, Ekaterina Shorohova, Ana Carolina Silva, G. Sioen, Jarosław Socha, Krzysztof Stereńczak, Jonas Stillhard, Dejan B. Stojanović, Susanne Suvanto, Miroslav Svoboda, Martina Sánchez‐Pinillos, Andrew J. Tanentzap, Anthony R. Taylor, Fabiano Turini Farah, Giorgio Vacchiano, A. Vibrans, A. Vilagrosa, E. Vilanova, L. Waser, S. Wiser, Kailiang Yu, Miguel A. Zavala, Laio Zimermann Oliveira, D. Zuleta, Alvaro Boson de Castro‐Faria, E. van der Maaten, M. van der Maaten-Theunissen New Phytologist, 2025
Understanding Europe's Forest Harvesting Regimes Susanne Suvanto, Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert, Mart‐Jan Schelhaas, Julen Astigarraga, Rasmus Astrup, Emil Cienciala, Jonas Fridman, Helena M. Henttonen, Georges Kunstler, Gerald Kändler, Louis A. König, Paloma Ruiz‐Benito, Cornelius Senf, Golo Stadelmann, Ajdin Starcevic, Andrzej Talarczyk, Miguel A. Zavala, Thomas A. M. Pugh Earth S Future, 2025
Tree canopy extent and height change in Europe, 2001–2021, quantified using Landsat data archive Svetlana Turubanova, Peter Potapov, Matthew C. Hansen, Xinyuan Li, Alexandra Tyukavina, Amy H. Pickens, Andres Hernandez-Serna, Adrian Pascual Arranz, Juan Guerra-Hernandez, Cornelius Senf, Tuomas Häme, Ruben Valbuena, Lars Eklundh, Olga Brovkina, Barbora Navrátilová, Jan Novotný, Nancy Harris, Fred Stolle Remote Sensing of Environment, 2023
Concerns about reported harvests in European forests Marc Palahí, Rubén Valbuena, Cornelius Senf, Nezha Acil, Thomas A. M. Pugh, Jonathan Sadler, Rupert Seidl, Peter Potapov, Barry Gardiner, Lauri Hetemäki, Gherardo Chirici, Saverio Francini, Tomáš Hlásny, Bas Jan Willem Lerink, Håkan Olsson, José Ramón González Olabarria, Davide Ascoli, Antti Asikainen, Jürgen Bauhus, Göran Berndes, Janis Donis, Jonas Fridman, Marc Hanewinkel, Hervé Jactel, Marcus Lindner, Marco Marchetti, Róbert Marušák, Douglas Sheil, Margarida Tomé, Antoni Trasobares, Pieter Johannes Verkerk, Minna Korhonen, Gert-Jan Nabuurs Nature, 2021
Globally consistent climate sensitivity of natural disturbances across boreal and temperate forest ecosystems Rupert Seidl, Juha Honkaniemi, Tuomas Aakala, Alexey Aleinikov, Per Angelstam, Mathieu Bouchard, Yan Boulanger, Philip J. Burton, Louis De Grandpré, Sylvie Gauthier, Winslow D. Hansen, Jane U. Jepsen, Kalev Jõgiste, Daniel D. Kneeshaw, Timo Kuuluvainen, Olga Lisitsyna, Kobayashi Makoto, Akira S. Mori, Deepa S. Pureswaran, Ekaterina Shorohova, Elena Shubnitsina, Anthony R. Taylor, Nadezhda Vladimirova, Floortje Vodde, Cornelius Senf Ecography, 2020
Patterns and drivers of recent disturbances across the temperate forest biome Andreas Sommerfeld, Cornelius Senf, Brian Buma, Anthony W. D’Amato, Tiphaine Després, Ignacio Díaz-Hormazábal, Shawn Fraver, Lee E. Frelich, Álvaro G. Gutiérrez, Sarah J. Hart, Brian J. Harvey, Hong S. He, Tomáš Hlásny, Andrés Holz, Thomas Kitzberger, Dominik Kulakowski, David Lindenmayer, Akira S. Mori, Jörg Müller, Juan Paritsis, George L. W. Perry, Scott L. Stephens, Miroslav Svoboda, Monica G. Turner, Thomas T. Veblen, Rupert Seidl Nature Communications, 2018
Unravelling the spatial and temporal variability of natural disturbances in European forests S Miguel, E Lines, M Tanase, A Viana‐Soto, C Senf, P Ruiz‐Benito Journal of Applied Ecology 63 (4), e70344 , 2026 2026
Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century M Grünig, W Rammer, C Senf, K Albrich, F André, ALD Augustynczik, ... Science 391 (6789), eadx6329 , 2026 2026 Citations: 11
The role of thermal constraints in post-disturbance forest recovery across the European Alps–a large-scale remote sensing study L Mandl, A Stritih, R Seidl, C Senf Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 378, 111016 , 2026 2026 Citations: 1
Climate-driven increases in wildfire projected to affect European forest types differently M Patacca, M Grünig, MJ Schelhaas, I Alberdi, S Filipek, J Fridman, ... Environmental Research Letters 21 (3), 034027 , 2026 2026
Tree Regeneration After Unprecedented Forest Disturbances in Central Europe Is Robust but Maladapted to Future Climate Change M Potterf, C Schattenberg, K Krüger, K Hochholzer, W Rammer, M Grünig, ... Global Change Biology 32 (2), e70734 , 2026 2026 Citations: 1
Forest Reburns Are Integral to Southern Europe's Disturbance Regimes A Viana‐Soto, C Senf Global Ecology and Biogeography 35 (2), e70198 , 2026 2026
Long‐term comparison shows protected and non‐protected forests differ in harvesting, but not in wildfires or drought‐driven dieback JM Espelta, A Viana‐Soto, R Molowny‐Horas, M de Caceres, M Selwyn, ... Journal of Applied Ecology 63 (2), e70282 , 2026 2026
The impact of extreme disturbance events on the economic attractiveness of stand types: A Monte Carlo simulation-based study R Farahani, J Fibich, J Mohr, C Senf, T Knoke Forest Policy and Economics 183, 103696 , 2026 2026
Benchmarking tree instance segmentation of terrestrial laser scanning point clouds W Cherlet, K Dayal, S Chen, Z Cooper, M Disney, A Hanzl, S Levick, ... ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 231, 230-247 , 2026 2026 Citations: 5
Landscape context modulates the effect of local canopy cover on forest multidiversity across elevations T Richter, R Seidl, LS Geres, S König, L Mandl, C Senf, A Keller, ... Journal of Applied Ecology 62 (12), 3537-3549 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
The amount of undisturbed forest in proximity of severe disturbance patches enhances their recovery in temperate Europe L Mandl, M Cerioni, R Bače, A Bončina, J Brůna, E Chećko, ... Landscape Ecology 40 (11), 1-15 , 2025 2025 Citations: 3
Increasing forest disturbance enhances habitat suitability for Europe’s large herbivores J Oeser, R Kowalczyk, D Kuijper, W Neumann, R Seidl, C Senf, R Reiner, ... 2025 Citations: 1
Natürliche Resilienz der Wälder gegenüber klimawandelbedingten Störungen S Peters, J Hagge, M Baumeister, P Beckschäfer, BM Delory, L Ehrminger, ... AFZ, der Wald 2025 (19), 24-26 , 2025 2025
Rising cost of disturbances for forestry in Europe under climate change JS Mohr, F Bastit, M Grünig, T Knoke, W Rammer, C Senf, D Thom, ... Nature Climate Change 15 (10), 1078-1083 , 2025 2025 Citations: 14
The Global Canopy Atlas: analysis-ready maps of 3D structure for the world’s woody ecosystems FJ Fischer, B Morgan, T Jackson, J Chave, D Coomes, KC Cushman, ... bioRxiv, 2025.08. 31.673375 , 2025 2025 Citations: 4
Spaceborne remote sensing effectively maps species richness across taxonomic groups in a mountain landscape C Senf, L Geres, T Richter, K Braziunas, F Glasmann, R Seidl, S Seibold International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 143 … , 2025 2025 Citations: 2
Realistic virtual forests for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space K Calders, M Herold, J Adams, J Armston, B Brede, W Cherlet, ZT Cooper, ... ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 227, 501-507 , 2025 2025 Citations: 6
Taylor’s law predicts unprecedented pulses of forest disturbance under global change C Senf, R Seidl, T Knoke, T Jucker Nature Communications 16 (1), 6133 , 2025 2025 Citations: 6
The European Forest Disturbance Atlas: a forest disturbance monitoring system using the Landsat archive A Viana-Soto, C Senf Earth System Science Data 17 (6), 2373-2404 , 2025 2025 Citations: 40
Setting aside areas for conservation does not increase disturbances in temperate forests K Krüger, C Senf, J Hagge, R Seidl Journal of Applied Ecology 62 (5), 1271-1281 , 2025 2025 Citations: 13
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Excess forest mortality is consistently linked to drought across Europe C Senf, A Buras, CS Zang, A Rammig, R Seidl Nature communications 11 (1), 6200 , 2020 2020 Citations: 623
Mapping the forest disturbance regimes of Europe C Senf, R Seidl Nature Sustainability 4, 63-70 , 2021 2021 Citations: 587
Canopy mortality has doubled in Europe’s temperate forests over the last three decades C Senf, D Pflugmacher, Y Zhiqiang, J Sebald, J Knorn, M Neumann, ... Nature Communications 9 (1), 4978 , 2018 2018 Citations: 385
Remote sensing of forest insect disturbances: Current state and future directions C Senf, R Seidl, P Hostert International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation 60, 49-60 , 2017 2017 Citations: 365
Patterns and drivers of recent disturbances across the temperate forest biome A Sommerfeld, C Senf, B Buma, AW D’Amato, T Després, ... Nature communications 9 (1), 4355 , 2018 2018 Citations: 334
Mapping land cover in complex Mediterranean landscapes using Landsat: Improved classification accuracies from integrating multi-seasonal and synthetic imagery C Senf, PJ Leitão, D Pflugmacher, S van der Linden, P Hostert Remote Sensing of Environment 156, 527-536 , 2015 2015 Citations: 215
Persistent impacts of the 2018 drought on forest disturbance regimes in Europe C Senf, R Seidl Biogeosciences 18 (18), 5223-5230 , 2021 2021 Citations: 212
Storm and fire disturbances in Europe: Distribution and trends C Senf, R Seidl Global change biology 27 (15), 3605-3619 , 2021 2021 Citations: 186
Globally consistent climate sensitivity of natural disturbances across boreal and temperate forest ecosystems R Seidl, J Honkaniemi, T Aakala, A Aleinikov, P Angelstam, M Bouchard, ... Ecography , 2020 2020 Citations: 186
Characterizing spectral–temporal patterns of defoliator and bark beetle disturbances using Landsat time series C Senf, D Pflugmacher, MA Wulder, P Hostert Remote Sensing of Environment 170, 166-177 , 2015 2015 Citations: 181
Natural disturbances are spatially diverse but temporally synchronized across temperate forest landscapes in Europe C Senf, R Seidl Global change biology 24 (3), 1201-1211 , 2018 2018 Citations: 172
Increasing aridity causes larger and more severe forest fires across Europe M Grünig, R Seidl, C Senf Global Change Biology 29 (6), 1648-1659 , 2023 2023 Citations: 162
Mapping rubber plantations and natural forests in Xishuangbanna (Southwest China) using multi-spectral phenological metrics from MODIS time series C Senf, D Pflugmacher, S Van der Linden, P Hostert Remote Sensing 5 (6), 2795-2812 , 2013 2013 Citations: 148
Post-disturbance recovery of forest cover and tree height differ with management in Central Europe C Senf, J Müller, R Seidl Landscape Ecology 34 (12), 2837-2850 , 2019 2019 Citations: 143
Characterizing spring phenology of temperate broadleaf forests using Landsat and Sentinel-2 time series K Kowalski, C Senf, P Hostert, D Pflugmacher International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 92, 102172 , 2020 2020 Citations: 132
Concerns about reported harvests in European forests M Palahí, R Valbuena, C Senf, N Acil, TAM Pugh, J Sadler, R Seidl, ... Nature 592 (7856), E15-E17 , 2021 2021 Citations: 118
Increasing canopy mortality affects the future demographic structure of Europe's forests C Senf, J Sebald, R Seidl One Earth 4 (5), 749-755 , 2021 2021 Citations: 116
Using Landsat time series for characterizing forest disturbance dynamics in the coupled human and natural systems of Central Europe C Senf, D Pflugmacher, H Patrick, R Seidl ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 130, 453-463 , 2017 2017 Citations: 116
Seeing the System from Above C Senf Ecosystems 25 (8), 1719-1737 , 2022 2022 Citations: 106
Post‐disturbance canopy recovery and the resilience of Europe’s forests C Senf, R Seidl Global Ecology and Biogeography 31 (1), 25-36 , 2022 2022 Citations: 103
