Seeds without borders: a transnational approach to adapt European forests to climate change

B8e: Forest Adaptation and Restation under Global Change: from Global to Regional Perspective

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Forest trees exhibit manifold local adaptations to the climate of their local habitat guaranteeing optimal growth and survival under stable environmental conditions. Climate is predicted to change at a significantly faster pace than the natural migration and adaptation capacity of trees, thus disrupting the link between climate and local adaptations. Planting alternative tree species and utilizing the tree species’ intrinsic adaptive capacity are considered to be the most promising adaptation strategy. In Europe, the utilization of forest reproductive material is regulated by European and National legislation which define National Regions of Provenance. These Regions differs among countries and do neither reflect climate conditions nor climate change. However, climate change may render the local seed sources maladapted, while optimum seed sources may be the ones located outside of these defined regions. Therefore a transnational approach is required to integrate the link between local adaptation and climate change into reforestation policies. In the cooperation project SUSTREE, we develop transnational delineation models for forest seed transfer and genetic conservation based on species distribution models and trait-based intraspecific climate response functions. These models are being connected to registers of forest reproductive material as basis for decision support tools such as a Smartphone App and WEB-GIS which shall guide the selection of adapted planting materials under climate change. We recommend that legislation governing reforestation and seed transfer should be based on range-wide local adaptations of trees to assist management of genetic resources under climate change.