Flurin Babst

Interests

Teaching

My teaching interests broadly cover the interactions and feedbacks between terrestrial vegetation and its various environmental drivers (e.g., climate or disturbances). Beyond classroom teaching, I welcome students who would like to gain hands-on research experience in my lab. We adhere to the highest standards of interpersonal conduct and reject any form of discrimination or harassment.

Research

I study the responses of tree and shrub communities to changes in their environment. A focus is thereby placed on ecological scaling using a combination of in-situ observations (vegetation census, tree rings, soil samples, etc.) with ground, airborne, and spaceborne remote sensing. I am interested in process understanding, but also in quantitative assessments of vegetation productivity. The latter helps us inform nature-based climate solutions, aiming to balance carbon gains/losses against changes in water and energy budgets.

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Journals/Publications

• Bodesheim, P., Babst, F., Frank, D. C., Hartl, C., Zang, C. S., & Jung, M. (2022). Predicting spatiotemporal variability in radial tree growth at the continental scale with machine learning. . Environmental Data Science, 1, e9.
• Cabon, A., Kannenberg, S., Arain, A., Babst, F., Baldocchi, D., & Belmecheri, S. (2022). Cross-biome synthesis of source versus sink limits to tree growth. Science, 376, 758-761.
• Dorado-Linan, I., Ayarzaguena, B., Babst, F., Xu, G., Gil, L., & Battipaglia, G. (2022). Jet stream position explains regional anomalies in European beech forest productivity and tree growth.. Nature Communications, 13. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29615-8
• Dyola, N., Sigdel, S. R., Liang, E., Babst, F., Camarero, J. J., & Aryal, S. (2022). Species richness is a strong driver of forest biomass along broad bioclimatic gradients in the Himalayas. . Ecosphere, 13, e4107.
• Gao, S., Liang, E., Liu, R., Babst, F., Camarero, J. J., Fu, Y. H., Piao, S., Rossi, S., Shen, M., Wang, T., & Penuelas, J. (2022). An earlier start of the thermal growing season enhances tree growth in cold humid areas but not in dry areas. . Nature Ecology & Evolution, 322, 108996.
• Kannenberg, S., Cabon, A., Babst, F., Belmecheri, S., Delpierre, N., & Guerrieri, R. (2022). Drought-induced decoupling between carbon uptake and tree growth impacts forest carbon turnover time. . Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 322, 108996.
• Lu, X., Liang, E., Babst, F., Camarero, J. J., & Buentgen, U. (2022). Warming-induced tipping points of Arctic and alpine shrub recruitment. PNAS, 119, e2118120119.
• Salom\'{o}n, R. L., Peters, R. L., Zweifel, R., Sass-Klaassen, U., Stegehuis, A. I., Smiljanic, M., Poyatos, R., Babst, F., Cienciala, E., Fonti, P., Lerink, B., Lindner, M., Martinez-Vilalta, J., Mencuccini, M., Nabuurs, G., Maaten, E., Arx, G., Bär, A., Akhmetzyanov, L., , Balanzategui, D., et al. (2022). The 2018 European heatwave led to stem dehydration but not to consistent growth reductions in forests. Nature Communications, 13(1).
• Zuidema, P., Babst, F., Groenendijk, P., Trouet, V., Abiyu, A., & Acuna-Soto, R. (2022). Dry-season climate variability is a major driver of tropical tree growth. . Nature Geoscience, 15, 269-276.
• Bose, A. K., Scherrer, D., Camarero, J. J., Ziche, D., Babst, F., Bigler, C., Bolte, A., {n}\'{a}n, I. D., Etzold, S., Fonti, P., Forrester, D. I., Gavinet, J., Gazol, A., Andr\'{e}s, E. G., Karger, D. N., Lebourgeois, F., L\'{e}vesque, M., Mart\'{\i}nez-Sancho, E., Menzel, A., , Neuwirth, B., et al. (2021). Climate sensitivity and drought seasonality determine post-drought growth recovery of Quercus petraea and Quercus robur in Europe. Science of The Total Environment, 784, 147222.
• Jeong, J., Barichivich, J., Peylin, P., Haverd, V., McGrath, M. J., Vuichard, N., Evans, M. N., Babst, F., & Luyssaert, S. (2021). Using the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) records as century-long benchmarks for global land-surface models. Geoscientific Model Development, 14(9), 5891--5913.
• Lu, X., Liang, E., Wang, Y., Babst, F., & Camarero, J. J. (2021). Mountain treelines climb slowly despite rapid climate warming. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 30(1), 305-315.
• Monson, R. K., Hu, J., Frank, D. C., Wright, J. E., Babst, F., Belmecheri, S., & Szejner, P. (2021). Stable isotopes of tree rings reveal seasonal-to-decadal patterns during the emergence of a megadrought in the Southwestern US. Oecologia, 197(4), 16. doi:doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04916-9
• Peñuelas, J., Camarero, J. J., Piao, S., Salerno, F., Zhu, H., Shen, M., Muhammad, S., Babst, F., Liang, E., Pandey, J., Sigdel, S. R., & Leavitt, S. W. (2021). No benefits from warming even for subnival vegetation in the Himalayas. Science Bulletin, 66(18), 1825–1829. doi:10.1016/j.scib.2021.06.005
• Sigdel, S. R., Pandey, J., Liang, E., Muhammad, S., Babst, F., Leavitt, S. W., Shen, M., Zhu, H., Salerno, F., Piao, S., Camarero, J. J., uelas, J. P. (2021). No benefits from warming even for subnival vegetation in the central Himalayas. Science Bulletin, 66(18), 1825--1829.
• Szejner, P., Belmecheri, S., Babst, F., Wright, W. E., Frank, D. C., Hu, J., & Monson, R. K. (2021). Stable isotopes of tree rings reveal seasonal-to-decadal patterns during the emergence of a megadrought in the Southwestern US. Oecologia.
• Trotsiuk, V., Babst, F., Grossiord, C., Gessler, A., Forrester, D. I., Buchmann, N., Schaub, M., & Eugster, W. (2021). Tree growth in Switzerland is increasingly constrained by rising evaporative demand. Journal of Ecology.
• Wang, Y., Liang, E., Lu, X., Camarero, J. J., Babst, F., Shen, M., uelas, J. P. (2021). Warming-induced shrubline advance stalled by moisture limitation on the Tibetan Plateau. Ecography, 44(11), 1631--1641.
• Babst, F. (2020). Assessing the response of forest productivity to climate extremes in Switzerland using model‐data fusion. Global Change Biology.
• Babst, F. (2020). Axial changes in wood functional traits have limited net effects on stem biomass increment in European beech (Fagus sylvatica). Tree Physiology.
• Babst, F. (2020). Continental‐scale tree‐ring‐based projection of Douglas‐fir growth: Testing the limits of space‐for‐time substitution. Global Change Biology.
• Babst, F. (2020). The PROFOUND Database for evaluating vegetation models and simulating climate impacts on European forests. Earth System Science Data.
• Babst, F. (2019). Past the climate optimum: Recruitment is declining at the world's highest juniper shrublines on the Tibetan Plateau. Ecology.
• Babst, F. (2019). Seasonal and synoptic climatic drivers of tree growth in the Bighorn Mountains, WY, USA (1654\textendash1983 CE). Dendrochronologia.
• Babst, F. (2019). The climatic drivers of primary\ Picea\ forest growth along the Carpathian arc are changing under rising temperatures. Global Change Biology.
• Babst, F. (2019). Twentieth century redistribution in climatic drivers of global tree growth. Science Advances.
• Alexander, M. R., Rollinson, C. R., Babst, F., Trouet, V., & Moore, D. (2018). Relative influences of multiple sources of uncertainty on cumulative and incremental tree-ring-derived aboveground biomass estimates. Trees-Structure and Function, 32(1), 265-276.
• Babst, F., Bodesheim, P., Charney, N., Friend, A. D., Girardin, M. P., Klesse, S., Moore, D., Seftigen, K., Bjorklund, J., Bouriaud, O., Dawson, A., DeRose, R. J., Dietze, M. C., Eckes, A. H., Enquist, B., Frank, D. C., Mahecha, M. D., Poulter, B., Record, S., , Trouet, V., et al. (2018). When tree rings go global: Challenges and opportunities for retro- and prospective insight. Quaternary Science Reviews, 197, 1-20.
• Klesse, S., Babst, F., Lienert, S., Spahni, R., Joos, F., Bouriaud, O., Carrer, M., Di Filippo, A., Poulter, B., Trotsiuk, V., Wilson, R., & Frank, D. C. (2018). A Combined Tree Ring and Vegetation Model Assessment of European Forest Growth Sensitivity to Interannual Climate Variability. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 32(8), 1226-1240.
• Marchand, W., Girardin, M. P., Gauthier, S., Hartmann, H., Bouriaud, O., Babst, F., & Bergeron, Y. (2018). Untangling methodological and scale considerations in growth and productivity trend estimates of Canada's forests. Environmental Research Letters, 13(9).
• Seftigen, K., Frank, D. C., Bjorklund, J., Babst, F., & Poulter, B. (2018). The climatic drivers of normalized difference vegetation index and tree-ring-based estimates of forest productivity are spatially coherent but temporally decoupled in Northern Hemispheric forests. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27(11), 1352-1365.
• Trouet, V., Babst, F., & Meko, M. (2018). Recent enhanced high-summer North Atlantic Jet variability emerges from three-century context. Nature Communications, 9.
• Zhang, Z., Babst, F., Bellassen, V., Frank, D., Launois, T., Tan, K., Ciais, P., & Poulter, B. (2018). Converging Climate Sensitivities of European Forests Between Observed Radial Tree Growth and Vegetation Models. Ecosystems, 21(3), 410-425.
• Belmecheri, S., Babst, F., Hudson, A. R., Betancourt, J., & Trouet, V. (2017). Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream Position Indices as Diagnostic Tools for Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics. Earth Interactions, 21, 1-23.
• Evans, M., Falk, D. A., Arizpe, A., Swetnam, T. L., Babst, F., & Holsinger, K. E. (2017). Fusing tree-ring and forest inventory data to infer influences on tree growth. Ecosphere, 8(7).
• Montane, F., Fox, A. M., Arellano, A. F., MacBean, N., Alexander, M. R., Dye, A., Bishop, D. A., Trouet, V., Babst, F., Hessl, A. E., Pederson, N., Blanken, P. D., Bohrer, G., Gough, C. M., Litvak, M. E., Novick, K. A., Phillips, R. P., Wood, J. D., & Moore, D. (2017). Evaluating the effect of alternative carbon allocation schemes in a land surface model (CLM4.5) on carbon fluxes, pools, and turnover in temperate forests. Geoscientific Model Development, 10(9), 3499-3517.
• Wu, X., Liu, H., Li, X., Ciais, P., Babst, F., Guo, W., Zhang, C., Magliulo, V., Pavelka, M., Liu, S., Huang, Y., Wang, P., Shi, C., & Ma, Y. (2017). Differentiating drought legacy effects on vegetation growth over the temperate Northern Hemisphere.. Global change biology.
• Babst, F., Wright, W. E., Szejner, P., Wells, L., Belmecheri, S., & Monson, R. K. (2016). Blue intensity parameters derived from Ponderosa pine tree rings characterize intra-annual density fluctuations and reveal seasonally divergent water limitations. Trees-Structure and Function, 30(4), 1403-1415.
• Belmecheri, S., Babst, F., Wahl, E. R., Stahle, D. W., Trouet, V., Belmecheri, S., Babst, F., Wahl, E. R., Stahle, D. W., & Trouet, V. (2016). Multi-century evaluation of Sierra Nevada snowpack. Nature Climate Change, 6, 2-3.
• Szejner, P., Wright, W. E., Babst, F., Belmecheri, S., Trouet, V., Leavitt, S. W., Ehleringer, J. R., & Monson, R. K. (2016). Latitudinal gradients in tree ring stable carbon and oxygen isotopes reveal differential climate influences of the North American Monsoon System. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 121(7), 1978-1991.
• Rammig, A., Wiedermann, M., Donges, J. F., Babst, F., Bloh, W., Frank, D., Thonicke, K., & Mahecha, M. D. (2015). Coincidences of climate extremes and anomalous vegetation responses: comparing tree ring patterns to simulated productivity. Biogeosciences, 12(2), 373-385.
• Babst, F., Bouriaud, O., Alexander, R., Trouet, V., & Frank, D. (2014). Toward consistent measurements of carbon accumulation: A multi-site assessment of biomass and basal area increment across Europe. Dendrochronologia, 32(2), 153-161.
• Wu, X., Babst, F., Ciais, P., Frank, D., Reichstein, M., Wattenbach, M., Zang, C., & Mahecha, M. D. (2014). Climate-mediated spatiotemporal variability in terrestrial productivity across Europe. Biogeosciences, 11(11), 3057-3068.
• Babst, F., Poulter, B., Trouet, V., Tan, K., Neuwirth, B., Wilson, R., Carrer, M., Grabner, M., Tegel, W., Levanic, T., Panayotov, M., Urbinati, C., Bouriaud, O., Ciais, P., & Frank, D. (2013). Site- and species-specific responses of forest growth to climate across the European continent. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 22(6), 706-717.
• Babst, F., Carrer, M., Poulter, B., Urbinati, C., Neuwirth, B., & Frank, D. (2012). 500 years of regional forest growth variability and links to climatic extreme events in Europe. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4).
• Wilmking, M., Hallinger, M., Van Bogaert, R., Kyncl, T., Babst, F., Hahne, W., Juday, G. P., Luis, M., Novak, K., & Voellm, C. (2012). Continuously missing outer rings in woody plants at their distributional margins. Dendrochronologia, 30(3), 213-222.
• Babst, F., Esper, J., & Parlow, E. (2010). Landsat TM/ETM plus and tree-ring based assessment of spatiotemporal patterns of the autumnal moth (Epirrita autumnata) in northernmost Fennoscandia. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114(3), 637-646.
• Babst, F., Mueller, R. W., & Hollmarm, R. (2008). Verification of NCEP reanalysis shortwave radiation with mesoscale remote sensing data. Ieee Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 5(1), 34-37.

Presentations

• Babst, F. (2022, June). Where, when, and how: opportunities for forest monitoring networks to tackle scaling uncertainties. TreeNet 10-yr anniversary conference. Bad Bubendorf, Switzerland.
• Babst, F., Friend, A., Karamihalaki, M., Wei, J., von Arx, G., Papale, D., & Peters, R. (2022, May). Observations of carbon allocation in the world’s forests must match pace with vegetation model development. European Geoscience Union general assembly. Vienna, Austria.
• Babst, F., Gillan, J., Libantino-Norton, C., Devine, C., & van Leeuwen, W. (2022, April). Fusing terrestrial LiDAR and tree-ring observations to quantify and scale ecosystem structure and productivity for global change applications. Earth Dynamics Observatory meeting. Tucson.
• Klesse, S., Babst, F., Evans, M. E., Hurley, A., Pappas, C., & Peters, R. L. (2022, May). Drought legacy effects in radial tree growth are rarely significant under heightened statistical scrutiny. European Geoscience Union general assembly. Vienna, Austria.
• Wei, J., von Arx, G., Fan, Z., Ibrom, A., Mund, M., Knohl, A., Peters, R., & Babst, F. (2022, April). How much does carbon allocation to woody biomass change during drought episodes? Insights from two European beech forests. 7th Asian Dendro Conference. Zhuhai, China.
• Babst, F. (2021, 03). Is understanding the past enough to predict the future?. Departmental Colloquium of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. Tucson: University of Arizona.
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  Seminar
• Babst, F. (2021, 09). Hotspots of change in major tree species under global warming. RusDendro quadrennial meeting. Abakan, Russia (virtual).
• Babst, F. (2021, 09). The role of arid ecosystems in climate change mitigation depends on a carbon-energy trade-off. 2021 Symposium on Resilience Research for Global Development Challenges. University of Arizona: Arizona Institutes for Resilience.
• Babst, F. (2021, 11). An introduction to quantitative wood anatomy using ROXAS. International Youth Forum for Wood Anatomy. Chengdu, China (virtual).
• Babst, F., & Trouet, V. M. (2021, 04). Dry-season climate drives interannual variability in tropical tree growth. European Geosciences Union General Assembly. Vienna.
• Evans, M. E., DeRose, R. J., Klesse, S. M., Girardin, M., Heilman, K., Dietze, M., Shaw, J., Babst, F., Cahoon, S. M., Duchesne, L., Frank, D. C., Giebink, C., & Martinez-Gutierez, G. (2021). Enhanced Forest Ecosystem Monitoring for Carbon Accounting and Climate Mitigation: the Case for Adding Tree Rings to North American's National Forest Inventories. American Geophysical Union fall meeting. New Orleans.
• Babst, F., & Evans, M. E. (2020, August). Hotspots of change in major tree species under climate warming. Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. held virtually: Ecological Society of America.
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  Background/Question/MethodsWarming alters the variability and trajectories of tree growth around the world by intensifying or alleviating energy and water limitation. This insight from regional to global-scale research emphasizes the susceptibility of forest ecosystems and resources to climate change. However, globally-derived estimates are not necessarily meaningful for local nature conservation or management considerations, if they lack specific information on present or prospective tree species habitats. This is particularly the case towards the edge of their distribution, where shifts in growth trajectories may be imminent or already occurring. Importantly, the geographic space occupied by a tree species is not only constrained by climate, but often reflects biotic pressure such as competition for resources with other species. Hence, distinguishing climatic from competitive niche boundaries becomes a central challenge to identifying areas where tree species are most susceptible to climate change.Here, we employ a novel concept to characterize each position within a species’ bioclimatic niche based on two criteria: a climate sensitivity index (CSI) and a habitat occupancy index (HOI). The CSI is derived from step-wise multiple linear regression models that explain variability in annual radial tree growth as a function of monthly climate anomalies. The HOI is based on an ensemble of five species distribution models calculated from a combination of observed species occurrences and twenty-five bioclimatic variables.Results/ConclusionsWe calculated these two indices for 11 widespread tree species across the Northern Hemisphere. The combination of climate sensitivity and habitat suitability indicated hotspots of change, where tree growth is mainly limited by competition (low HOI and low CSI), as well as areas that are particularly sensitive to climate variability (low HOI and high CSI). In the former, we expect that forest management geared towards adjusting the competitive balance between several candidate species will be most effective under changing environmental conditions. In the latter areas, selecting particularly drought-tolerant accessions of a given species may reduce forest susceptibility to the predicted warming and drying.