We offer expertise, long-term datasets and field infrastructure for collaborative research on forest resilience under climate change and increasing disturbance pressure. We study how trees and forest communities respond to drought, warming and extreme disturbances—including tropical cyclones, windstorms and wildfire—and how these responses affect growth, mortality, regeneration, succession, forest structure, biodiversity, carbon dynamics and ecosystem stability.
Our group combines long-term permanent-plot monitoring, dendrochronology, quantitative wood anatomy, ecophysiology, functional traits, vegetation and community ecology, remote sensing and cross-site synthesis. A key strength is linking processes across scales, from individual-tree growth and physiological responses to demographic change, canopy structure, biodiversity, productivity and long-term forest dynamics. Our research spans temperate and old-growth forests in Central Europe and East Asia and contributes to continental and global forest syntheses.
We are particularly interested in transnational projects addressing climate resilience, interacting disturbances, drought and heat, tree mortality and recovery, post-disturbance regeneration and succession, biodiversity–stability relationships, carbon sequestration, and early indicators of forest decline. We can contribute long-term datasets and permanent plots, coordinated field measurements, tree-ring and wood-anatomical analyses, ecophysiology, vegetation and regeneration surveys, remote sensing, statistical modelling and cross-site synthesis. We welcome integration with carbon-flux measurements, process-based modelling, metabolomics, soil processes and plant–microbiome research.

Selected publications:
Doležal J. et al. (2024). Diversity effects and compensatory dynamics drive productivity and stability in temperate old-growth forests. Journal of Ecology 112, 2249–2263.
Tumajer J. et al. (2025). Longer growing seasons will not offset growth loss in drought-prone temperate forests. Nature Communications 16, 9535.
Korznikov K. et al. (2026). Climate-linked cascading disturbances drive conifer forest decline in a boreal–temperate ecotone. Forestry 99, cpaf078.
Korznikov K. et al. (2025). Unprecedented tropical cyclone in temperate-boreal ecotone drives declines in emergent conifers and canopy complexity. Ecology 106, e70261.
Lanta V. et al. (2025). Plant colonisation, soil nutrient patterns and microclimate after a large forest fire in temperate Central Europe. Forest Ecology and Management 585, 122643.
Lanta V. et al. (2025). Plant and saproxylic beetle dynamics during succession in lowland temperate broadleaf forests. Biological Conservation 308, 111258.
Lanta V. et al. (2023). Multifaceted diversity changes during early stages of post-logging forest succession. Plant Ecology 224, 335–347.
Mo L. et al. (2023). Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential. Nature 624, 92–101.

The Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences is a major research institution in plant ecology, vegetation science, biodiversity and ecosystem research. The Department of Functional Ecology investigates plant and forest responses to environmental change across spatial and temporal scales, from individual-tree physiology and growth to population, community and ecosystem dynamics.

Our forest research combines long-term permanent-plot monitoring, dendrochronology, quantitative wood anatomy, functional ecology, ecophysiology, vegetation science and remote sensing to understand how climate, disturbance, competition and biodiversity regulate tree growth, mortality, regeneration, productivity and ecosystem stability.

Our research covers temperate and old-growth forests in Central Europe and East Asia and includes comparative studies across broad climatic and environmental gradients. Recent work has focused particularly on drought and warming, extreme climatic events, tropical cyclones, cascading disturbances, wildfire and post-fire recovery, forest biodiversity and stability, and carbon dynamics.

The group has extensive experience in international collaborative research, long-term ecological datasets, field experiments and synthesis of large ecological datasets. Our current research also provides opportunities to integrate forest dynamics with carbon storage, metabolomics and plant–microbial interactions, thereby linking above- and below-ground mechanisms of forest resistance, recovery and long-term resilience.