At the joint NSO-GfÖ 2026 conference in Odense, Denmark, EORC postdoc and EO4cam researcher Dr. Julia Rieder gave an interesting talk on the use of airborne laser scanning (ALS) data and orthophoto time series data from airplane campaigns to detect change in canopy openness of European Beech and the link of openness to the tree’s loss of leafs (defoliation) due to drought. The research she presented during the session “Drought” on Wednesday has been part of her PhD studies in the context of the Beechdecline and EO4cam projects.
Julia showed that canopy gap dynamics can be well observed using orthophoto time series, but the effect of canopy gap size on defoliation of a beech tree differ across the directions of the canopy gaps in relation to the position of a tree: For example, canopy gaps to the north are negatively correlated (possibly due to higher water availability or different microclimate), gaps to the west show positive effect, leading to higher defoliation. These findings were recently published in the journal Forestry. Julia’s talk, titled “Spatiotemporal Patterns of Canopy Openness and Their Link to Drought-Induced Defoliation in European Beech” draw much interest by conference participants.
The conference on research in ecology across various fields has been attended by nearly 1000 researchers. Jointly organised by the Nordic Society Oikos, representing the ecological societies of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, and the Gesellschaft für Ökologie, representing Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, it offered a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from various ecological research fields and research regions – from forestry topics, agriculture, alpine and arctic ecosystems to experimental ecology, insect research and more. The University of Würzburg was represented both through the contributions of the EORC as well as members of the Unviersity’s bio centre.
