Enhancing resilience and adaptation of native European beech and sessile oak forests to climate change: assisted migration in practice

Stockholm

2024

559

Bandaufführung

40005298

Climate change exerts impacts on forest growth, productivity, tree vitality, and species composition at both global and local scales. Due to limited natural migration capacity and local adaptation caused by the warming climate, some species will face significant loss of habitats and decreased distribution. In light of these concerns, the science-based and practice-oriented bilateral project REIN-Forest ATHU150 focused on two dominant deciduous forest tree species, Quercus petraea and Fagus sylvatica, in the Austrian-Hungarian border region. The project aimed to maintain the present forest cover, preserve biodiversity, and safeguard future economic benefits by selecting suitable, resilient, and potentially adapted provenances (seed sources). In each country, three provenance trials ranging from 1.2 to 2 hectares were established to assess, monitor and validate the benefits of these provenances compared to local ones. The future climate-adapted provenances were selected for the RCP 8.5 climate change scenario using previously developed model-based information on the current and future prospects of these forests in the study area and forest decision support systems: Forest Vulnerability and Seed Transfer Tool and SusSelect (SUSTREE project). During the establishment of the six provenance trials, forest reproductive material (FRM) from ten local and fifteen adapted to the future climate seed stands were planted, originating from seven different countries. In the winter of 2022, one site in each country was afforested with local and adapted sessile oak provenances, another with local and adapted European beech provenances, and the third site with a combination of local European beech and adapted sessile oak provenances, considering the predicted loss of beech dominance in the future. In the next fifteen years, the performance of the different FRMs will be evaluated by monitoring parameters such as survival, phenology, abiotic and biotic damage, quality and growth. Genetic monitoring may also be assessed to compare and validate the concept of assisted migration with future climateadapted provenances alongside the transfer system recommendations. This presentation aims to share the practical experiences acquired during the establishment of the trials, highlight challenges and obstacles encountered during the import of FRM, and present first results on survival rates between the two groups of FRM.