Abstract
Local adaptation and plasticity of growth play important roles in the adaptability of trees to changing conditions. Under accelerating climatic changes, the adaptive capacity of metapopulations can be exceeded, implying a necessity for assisted gene flow to sustain the productivity of forests. Such management is knowledge intensive, and information on the responsiveness of metapopulations (provenances) across the climatic gradient can aid more comprehensive projections of their performance. The plasticity of growth responses to weather conditions of five provenances of Scots pine with differing field performance across the climatic gradient of the south-eastern Baltic Sea region was assessed using dendrochronological methods and generalized additive models. Weather conditions related to water availability in summer, as well as during dormancy, were the main regional drivers of an increment in the provenances. The provenances differed by the plasticity of responses according to field performance, indicating adaptation in terms of growth sensitivity and uneven adaptability. The weather–growth responses of the top-performing provenances to summer weather were more plastic, providing advantages under a changing climate. Accordingly, regional sensitivity and plasticity of growth responses could be used for the screening of genotypes best suited for the projected climates. In addition, the estimated growth responses encourage supplementation of the local breeding populations with the top-performing provenances originating from sites with the projected climates.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilSubstantial changes in forest composition are projected in Eastern and Northern Europe by the end of the 21st century [1,2] due to warming, the increasing heterogeneity of the precipitation regime [3,4,5], and other weather extremes [2]
Wider Tree-ring width (TRW) was measured in the coastal LI trial compared to others, implying generally comparable productivity
The strength of the common environmental forcing of the increment did not show explicit geographic tendencies; the mean r-bar ranged from 0.35 to 0.49 in NL and WS trials, while signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranged from ca. 8.55 to
Summary
Substantial changes in forest composition are projected in Eastern and Northern Europe by the end of the 21st century [1,2] due to warming, the increasing heterogeneity of the precipitation regime [3,4,5], and other weather extremes [2] This highlights the necessity for adaptive management to mitigate ecological and economic consequences [6,7,8]. Assisted migration/gene flow in combination with breeding have been identified as highly effective for the coupling of ecological demands of forest reproductive material with the projected climates [7,9,10,11,12] Such an approach requires comprehensive information on biotic and abiotic factors influencing tree growth [6,7,8,13].
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