RT Journal Article
T1 The Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances: DEFID2
A1 Forzieri, Giovanni
A1 Dutrieux, Loïc P.
A1 Elia, Agata
A1 Eckhardt, Bernd
A1 Caudullo, Giovanni
A1 Álvarez Taboada, Flor
A1 Andriolo, Alessandro
A1 Bălăcenoiu, Flavius
A1 Bastos, Ana
A1 Buzatu, Andrei
A1 Castedo Dorado, Fernando
A1 Dobrovolný, Lumír
A1 Duduman, Mihai-Leonard
A1 Fernandez-Carrillo, Angel
A1 Hernández-Clemente, Rocío
A1 Hornero, Alberto
A1 Ionuț, Săvulescu
A1 Lombardero Díaz, María Josefa
K1 Bark beetle
K1 Biotic forest disturbances
K1 Climate change
K1 Defoliator
K1 Forest carbon cycle
K1 Forest resilience
K1 Pest monitoring
K1 Tree mortality
AB 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/
PB Wiley
SN 1365-2486
YR 2023
FD 2023-08-22
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44545
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44545
LA eng
NO Forzieri, G., Dutrieux, L. P., Elia, A., Eckhardt, B., Caudullo, G., Taboada, F. Á., Andriolo, A., Bălăcenoiu, F., Bastos, A., Buzatu, A., Dorado, F. C., Dobrovolný, L., Duduman, M.-L., Fernandez-Carrillo, A., Hernández-Clemente, R., Hornero, A., Ionuț, S., Lombardero, M. J., Junttila, S. … Beck, P. S. A. (2023). The Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances: DEFID2. Global Change Biology, 29, 6040–6065. https://doi. org/10.1111/gcb.16912
NO European Commission, Joint Research Centre (project FOREST@RISK)
NO European Research Council Starting Grant ForExD (Grant agreement no. 101039567)
NO Romanian data providers (F.B., A.Bu., C.N., N.O., and M.P.) were supported by the projects PN 23090102, PN 19070204, and 34PFE./30.12.2021 “Increasing the institutional capacity and performance of INCDS ‘Marin Drăcea’ in the activity of RDI—CresPerfInst” funded by the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization of Romania
NO LifeWatch—POC project (contract no. 327/390003/06-11-2020)
DS Minerva
RD 6 jun 2026