Forests account for 45% of global terrestrial carbon stocks, serve a critical role in the maintenance of biodiversity, and are central to hydrological and nutrient cycles. Unfortunately, these services are at risk from increasing temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns, biological invasions and other forms of global change, which have been linked to observed tree mortality in many regions. Projected changes in climate and other environmental drivers are expected to further jeopardize forest ecosystems by promoting more widespread, severe, and frequent mortality events, with consequences for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and feedbacks to climate change through loss of carbon sinks. The research on forest change is progressing rapidly in attempt to keep pace with assessing these changes, estimating their impacts and projecting future forest trajectories. Since the publication of a commissioned ESA Centennial review paper with >400 citations in Ecosphere in 2015, there have been more than 6,000 publications just based on a search of “tree AND mortality OR die-off,” highlighting the phenomenal rate of research growth in this area. Organized sessions to help synthesize these voluminous and rapid advances are critical. The objective of this organized oral session will be to highlight the most recent research on the fate of forests in a rapidly changing world, including forest die-off and recruitment from international observational, ecophysiological, and modeling perspectives. More specifically, talks will cover the most recent research on mechanisms of tree mortality in a warming world, patterns of tree decline and mortality across broad geographic regions, model projections of tree mortality, and tree recruitment dynamics following extensive tree die-off that will drive future forest trajectories. This session will be of great interest to ESA members attending the annual meeting given the tremendous effect that forests have on a diverse array of organisms and processes throughout the world.