Identifying adapted seed sources for major European tree species under climate change

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Artikel aus einer Zeitschrift

200206855

Adaptive forest management aims at reducing vulnerability and enhancing the resilience of forest ecosystems in order to preserve the capacity of forests to provide multiple ecosystem services also under climate change. Adaptive management also includes a better utilization of the intrinsic genetic variation within tree species to identify adapted seed sources for planting under future conditions, following assisted migration and assisted gene flow approaches. Traditionally, seed material for plantations are identified based on the concept of “local is best” whereby local seed sources are considered to be optimally adapted to the regions where they grow. Here, we introduce a new harmonized dataset of in total 545 provenance trials of seven economically and ecologically important tree species of Europe. These data are the basis for Universal Response Functions (URFs) that combine both climate and genetic effects to model the phenotypic variation in functional traits. The URFs helped to identify the major drivers of phenotypic variation in functional traits and were used a basis for reforestation tool guiding seed deployment and the identification of adapted planting materials for future climate conditions.