PhD course: Management and consequences of forest damage, 3.5 ECTS

This PhD course explores the management and consequences of abiotic events and biotic agents affecting forest ecosystems. The effects of abiotic factors such as fire, drought, snow, and wind and biotic factors such as insect pests, pathogens, and wildlife, and their combinations on forest health will be assessed. PhD students will gain a comprehensive understanding of how to manage these damages through prevention, mitigation, and restoration techniques and the trade-offs between management practices.

The course emphasizes strategies to enhance forest resilience, with a focus on adaptive management and the use of resistant species to future-proof forests against such damage. The course will highlight the role of government interventions and financial considerations in forest management. Emerging threats, such as invasive species and the impact of climate change, will also be addressed. Together, these topics will prepare PhD students to manage and adapt to future challenges in forest health.

For more information on the course and the learning outcomes visit the course page in LADOK

Additional information:

Online meetings begin in September for three weeks, followed by one week in person, and then another three online meetings. Online meetings will consist of lectures from experts on a given topic of forest damage and group discussions of pertinent literature. For the onsite week, in addition to in-person lectures, students will present a case study of a type of forest damage to the group. There will also be excursions to field sites in Skåne to exemplify certain types of forest damage and their management. Preliminarily, there will be an excursion to Snogeholm to see management of ash dieback disease through resistance selection and to see silvicultural methods of managing damage with production. Other excursions to study fire damage and root rot are also envisioned.

The course will be taught in English. Course pace is 20%.