Rupert Seidl (Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM) and his colleague Cornelius Senf (lead author of the study) for the first time produced a high-resolution map of all openings in the canopy of European forests. They have analyzed more than 30,000 satellite images and identified more than 36 million areas where large trees have given way to open spaces of young trees. This corresponds to a loss of the canopy in 17 percent of the European forests in 30 years.