With increasing disturbances (such as fire, windthrows, insect and pathogen outbreaks) and extensive human impact, projected climate change places temperate montane forests under extreme pressure. It is uncertain how these ecosystems will respond to those changes. I focus on studying long-term (millennial) mountain forest change at various gradients to understand its dynamics and drivers in Central Europe with links to Scandinavia. Using a high-resolution, interdisciplinary, multi-proxy approach (e.g., sedimentary fossil pollen, charcoal, plant and insect remains), we can detect different disturbances and drivers of forest change. We also determine their long-term diversity change under various climatic conditions and disturbance regimes. Findings have a crucial role in understanding the future climate-driven vegetation change, which still lacks broader continentality scales from the past.
