Conservation Of Deciduous Tree Species in Europe: Projecting Potential Ranges and Changes

Abstract

Conservation in settled fragmented landscapes, especially with climates changing, requires planning as well as physiological information not yet available. In the absence of the latter, climatic envelopes provide an initial means of projecting possible range changes, as well as potential range expansions on other continents. In this paper, climatic envelopes for major European tree species and hypothetical counterparts in eastern North America are evaluated, projected and cross-projected in order to demonstrate a hopefully useful methodology but also to suggest some initial questions of importance to conservation efforts in Europe, especially the Balkan region. Cross-projections of some counterpart species to the other continent are shown and may help improve understanding of limiting mechanisms and values, thus improving the robustness of climatic envelopes under change scenarios. Potential range displacements in Europe are also shown for selected tree species, based on a warming-only scenario (no net drying) that appears plausible, based on new warming estimates.