An economic analysis of seed source options under a changing climate for black spruce and white pine in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

We present a model that maps the net present value (NPV) associated with planting black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.) and white pine (Pinus strobus L.) seed sources across a study area centred on Ontario, Canada. The model accounts for climate change through the use of universal response functions, which (in principle) predict the growth of any seed source under any climatic conditions. We demonstrated the use of the model for two locations in northern Ontario; both species exhibited significant variation in NPV across the study area and significant gains associated with climate-smart seed movements. For example, the NPV associated with potential white pine seed sources varied by more than $1500·ha−1 for a planting site at North Bay, Ontario. We also compared the NPV maps with climate similarity maps to examine the degree to which simple climate matching can act as a proxy for the detailed genecology relationships contained in the universal response functions. Overall, the climate similarity maps were well-correlated with the NPV maps; however, there was poor agreement regarding white pine seed deployment from North Bay, for which the two approaches identified opposite seed transfer directions. We propose that this situation can arise when species show strong adaptation to a central climatic optimum.