Abstract
The growth response of trees to ongoing climate change has important implications for future forest dynamics, accurate carbon accounting, and sustainable forest management. We used data from black spruce (Picea mariana) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana) provenance trials, along with published data for three other northern conifers, to identify a consistent growth response to climate warming in which cold-origin populations are expected to benefit and warm-origin populations are expected to decline. Specifically, populations from across the geographic range of a species appear to grow well at temperatures characteristic of the southern portion of the range, indicating significant potential for a positive growth response to climate warming in cold-origin populations. Few studies have quantified and compared this pattern across multiple species using provenance data. We present a forest regeneration strategy that incorporates these anticipated growth responses to promote populations that are both local to the planting site and expected to grow well under climate change.
Highlights
Method that essentially combines the response and transfer function approaches described above into a universal response function that can predict the height growth of any seed source at any planting site within the range of the data used to develop the relationship
We conclude by exploring the implications of this finding for tree growth under climate change and identify an approach that explicitly incorporates these considerations into forest regeneration and restoration efforts
Forty-five black spruce seed sources were included in the analysis (Fig. 1a; see Methods for details)
Summary
Method that essentially combines the response and transfer function approaches described above into a universal response function that can predict the height growth of any seed source at any planting site within the range of the data used to develop the relationship. We make use of traditional response functions as they allow our findings to be conveyed in a relatively simple and transparent manner. We employ a combination of provenance trial data and published data/findings to examine the anticipated growth response of five northern conifers to climate change. Our key finding is remarkably consistent across these species, with cold-origin (northern) populations expected to exhibit a positive growth response to a significant amount of climate warming, while warm-origin (southern) populations are expected to exhibit near-immediate declines. We conclude by exploring the implications of this finding for tree growth under climate change and identify an approach that explicitly incorporates these considerations into forest regeneration and restoration efforts. This work provides several insights that have been largely overlooked, despite their significant implications for forest dynamics under rapid climate change
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