Computational tools for modelling global ecological change impacts and adaptations in forest ecosystems

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Global ecological change and/or its mitigation are having unexpected effects on forest ecosystem structure and dynamics, however an understanding of how various stressors interact with disturbance regimes to affect such indicators is unknown. Such interactions can have a variety of effects -- from changing tree growth rates to species niche expansion to flipping of alternative stable states in mosaic ecosystems -- and can in turn dramatically change our directions for management and conservation of forest ecosystems at local and regional scales. At global scales increasing human population has created unprecedented pressure on our ability to sustain humane livelihoods as well as the integrity of our environments. The collapse of human-dominated ecosystems in historical and recent times suggests that we do not have a good understanding of human-environment coupled systems, and thus the pathways to sustainability are still largely uncharted. Forest conservation, for example, is intimately linked with things like land sparing and agricultural yield. We argue that scenarios developed using computationally intensive models capture complexity in ways that that analytical approaches cannot, revealing possibilities to help guide adaptation strategies to avert future unpleasant "surprises".