Modelling Response of Norway Spruce Forest Vegetation to Projected Climate and Environmental Changes in Central Balkans Using Different Sets of Species

Abstract

The structure and function of many forest ecosystems will be modified as a result of air pollution and climate change. Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) forests are among the first terrestrial ecosystems to respond to this change. We analysed how changes in climate and environmental factors will affect vegetation cover in Norway spruce forests and whether it is possible to assemble a list of diagnostically important/sensitive species that would be the first to react to changes in habitats of Norway spruce in Central Balkan. Significant changes in the vegetation cover of Norway spruce forests are mainly influenced by temperature increases (≈4 °C), and precipitation decreases (≈102 mm) by the end of the 21st century. Projections show that vegetation cover changes and future habitat conditions for Norway spruce forests on podzolic brown soils with a low base saturation and soil pH decreases, and temperature growth and precipitation decline, with the worst in the Rodope montane forest ecoregion. In Dinaric Mountain and Balkan mixed forest ecoregions, the range of natural occurrence of Norway spruce forest will shift to higher altitudes, or to the north. One of the cognitions of this paper is that, through available environmental models and their indices, species from the IUCN Red List should be recognised more properly and included in model calculations.